


She Seduced Me

by imunbreakabledude



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Canon Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Slow Burn, Teacher/Student, canon-compliant exploration of Anna and V's relationship, oksana astankova being a dramatic hoe, pardon my bad french, starts wholesome but... you know how it ends, technically a 2010 period piece, underage reationship as established in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imunbreakabledude/pseuds/imunbreakabledude
Summary: Anna Leonova is a good person. She always has been, until a new student in her Elementary French class challenges her very notion of what that means.
Relationships: Anna Leonova/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 77
Kudos: 160





	1. A Fresh Start

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the bits of backstory that were set up between Villanelle and Anna. I could not help myself from imagining, what lay behind the brief and biased summary of their relationship Anna provided in the show? This fic will be my attempt to fill in the blanks, complying with what was established in canon, but otherwise figuring out how an ostensibly God-fearing married language teacher could have ended up in an affair with her psychopathic top student.
> 
> Note: Anytime other languages appear in this fic, you can hover over the text for an English translation.

Anna Leonova is a good person.

Though at times her faith in God has wavered (though she’d never admit this to her parents; they’d perish at the thought), her days spent in church growing up thoroughly impressed upon her the importance of treating others with kindness. Love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Care for those less fortunate than yourself. It has never been hard for her, either: it feels good to do good, so in a way, her selflessness is the most selfish thing about her.

She always strives to do better, be better, give more, and judge less. Her husband Maxi is the same… no, even better. He is effortless in his ability to give to her, to others, to the whole community. It’s why Anna loved him, and really how they’d first fallen in love… They’d met while volunteering at a soup kitchen, so it was a natural connection. To this day, he remained her rock and her inspiration to better each day than the day before.

Yes, Anna Leonova is, without question, a good person.

She repeats that to herself each day of her life, as it gets harder and harder to believe. 

* * *

The entire school is abuzz about the new student due to arrive that day – the teachers most of all. As Anna enters the lounge that morning, teachers all around were huddled in loose groups, swapping details of what they’d heard.

“I can’t believe they’d let someone like that come here,” she hears Pyotr Khobotov sniff in that self-aggrandizing tone of his. The upper level math instructor is always sure that he knows best on every subject, not just math.

“Nonsense. Reintegration is key to rehabilitation,” says Yevgeny Bykovsky, the psychology instructor. 

“Of course you’d say that,” Khobotov snorts. “But would you want this degenerate in your classroom?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Bykovsky insists, but the catch in his voice and the blood rushing to his cheeks tell another story.

“You’d go ahead and teach about simulus-response like normal, while there’s a cheeky little murderer sitting in the third row, just waiting for the right stimulus to gouge your eye out?”

“Don’t spread false rumors. She isn’t a murderer,” Olga Gusov cuts in. As the lower level history instructor, she’s always one to focus on facts.

“I heard she set fire to a building while a boy was still inside. What would you call that, Olga?”

“No, I talked to Lesnitsky who heard it straight from the case worker the other day. She got sent away for arson, it’s true, but they couldn’t prove it was intentional. A boy did die, but they called it manslaughter. And besides, it was years ago.”

“Oh yes, manslaughter! My mistake, that’s much better,” Khobotov scoffs. “I’m sure spending years in a nuthouse made her _less_ violent.”

“‘Nuthouse’ is an offensive term. It’s a reformatory for juvenile delinquents,” Bykovksy corrects him.

“Call it whatever you want, just keep those terrors locked up far from the rest of us. I don’t see why anyone should get a free pass just for being a child,” Khobotov says. “A criminal is a criminal, and we don’t need any of them coming and ruining our school’s reputation. I don’t see why the administration approved it.”

“I’m telling you, it’s rehabilitation,” Bykovsky says, then adds quietly, “And, I think the school gets extra funding for taking on ‘challenging’ cases the government doesn’t want to deal with.”

“There’s the answer,” Khobotov laughs. “It always comes down to money!”

“If you’re so concerned with money, Khobotov, why did you become a teacher?” Olga teases him.

Anna listens to their conversation idly while she wanders over to check the office mailbox and finds a memo for her. A change to the roster for one of her classes, Elementary French.

“Excuse me, Olga?” Anna asks, scanning down the new roster. “What is the name of that student you’re talking about?”

“It’s escaping me now…” Olga pauses to think. “Something with an A.”

“Astankova?” Anna asks.

“Yes, that was it!” Olga says triumphantly. Anna feels Olga’s eyes on her, soon joined by Bykovsky’s and Khobotov’s, as they all notice Anna staring down at her new roster.

“Oh, Anna, I’m sorry,” Olga sighs.

“Don’t be sorry,” Anna replies. “Call me a fool, but like Bykovsky, I believe in rehabilitation.”

Anna had been determined not to stray too far into the gossipy fever that the rest of the faculty had adopted about the new student. Now, however, that she knows that student is one of her own, she is confronted with the same sorts of questions the other teachers had been squawking about, but in a practical sense rather than a hypothetical one. Could she really teach as normal with a murderer – or rather, a _manslaughter-er_ – in a desk only a few feet from her?

Really, though, the main question at hand is the same question that Anna asks herself about all the rest of the students: _How can I best help this child to succeed?_

The only difference is that in this case, the answer may be more elusive than lesson planning and lecture pacing. Anna cautions herself not to make assumptions, but surely a child who has spent years in a juvenile detention center would need help of some sort or another. Academic? Emotional? Behavioral? Anna couldn’t be sure exactly how the girl might adjust to being in a regular school classroom again, but it was sure to be difficult transition for her.

Anna spends her morning classes thinking about how to best prepare herself to help the newcomer. The only surefire decision she makes ahead of time is not to stare. 

As it turns out, it makes little difference whether Anna stares or not, because every single other student in the class decides to keep their gaze locked on the new girl for the entire class period. Anna strives to continue her lecture as usual, but she might as well be on another planet as the other students are only fixated on watching and whispering. Anna can only imagine what kind of nasty things they’re saying, after hearing how bad the other adults were.

" _Taisez-vous!_ ” Anna chastises them, and the volume of chatter drops for a few seconds before slowly building up again. As the children whisper, the one word Anna is able to pick out above the others is: _“Her?”_

She understands why, for even though she had tried her best not to form assumptions, her brain had conjured up a temporary image of what the new student might look like. Stocky. Scowling. Scarred. 

But the new addition to Elementary French is a little slip of a thing, not at all like Anna had expected. Dark brown hair and eyes. Rounded features. Pretty, but all-around rather average in appearance. Anna wouldn’t have picked her out of a crowd. In fact, she blends in so much so that if not for the memo that morning and the other students gawking, Anna may not have even noticed she had a new student at all.

Beyond her dark eyes and her slight smile, Anna knows there must lay a troubled mind. For one would have to be quite troubled to set fire to a building, no?

Anna has decided not to treat the girl any differently than any other student. She was already getting gawked at like an animal in a zoo; she probably wanted nothing more than to simply go about her school day and fit in like everyone else. So Anna makes no special mention or acknowledgement to the girl, teaches the lesson like normal, and lets her leave with the rest of class once the bell rings. Whatever happened in the girl’s other classes, Anna could not control, but at least she could make sure her Elementary French class was a temporary reprieve from whatever the other instructors might put her through.

She is disappointed to find that her well-intentioned ignorance seems to be the wrong tactic when Oksana Astankova fails to turn in a single assignment in her first three weeks. The first week, Anna had been inclined to forgive: transferring to a new school was a big transition, so some difficulty was to be expected. The second week, Anna rationalized that perhaps the transition back to her home life was proving difficult as well, so she forgave the missing work once again. By the third week, she would either have to address the problem head on or quietly fail the girl, so she breaks her doctrine of non-interference and asks Oksana to stay after class.

Anna has always had trouble with confrontation. She’s slowly struggling to come up with the correct approach, but for her part, Oksana does not seem worried about being late to her next class. Instead, she stands up from her desk and starts poking around the classroom inquisitively, picking at posters on the walls.

Anna eases into the conversation, asking “How have you been adjusting to this school?”

Oksana heads over to Anna’s bookshelf and pulls out Anna’s copy of _L’Etranger_. “You can really read this?”

“Yes,” Anna replies. Oksana blinks skeptically. Anna carefully continues her train from before. “Are you having any trouble in class? I would love to help in any way I can.”

“This one too?” Now Oksana has picked up Anna’s copy of _Inferno_ in the original Italian.

“Yes,” Anna answers, starting to get slightly annoyed, but she calms herself. There’s nothing wrong with the girl being curious about her books, and in fact, it may be a positive thing. But first she has to address the issue at hand. “I want to know why you haven’t been doing any of the assignments.”

Anna immediately feels bad at the accusatory nature of her factual comment, so she adds, “I would be happy to help you. You joined the class in the middle of the year; there’s no shame if you’re having trouble.”

“I’m not,” Oksana says, fanning through the pages of _Inferno_.

“Then why haven’t you been doing them?”

“I don’t care,” Oksana replies. 

Anna is taken aback by the girl’s brazen nonchalance. Perhaps she should have suspected a bit of attitude from a student with a history of, putting it mildly, bad behavior, but she always tries to expect the best from people until they give her reason to believe otherwise.

“I can imagine school may not be a priority for you right now,” Anna empathizes. “Having been away for so long, it must feel strange to come back. But I must remind you that your studies are important, and if you don’t complete the work, I will have to fail you.”

The girl stands still, no witty retort prepared to fire back against that threat. Apparently the threat of real consequences was all it took to get through to her. But Anna begins to worry when she notices Oksana’s lip beginning to quiver her eyes filling up with tears. 

Anna is furious with herself – she should’ve taken a gentler touch! Something about the girl’s manner had prickled her in such a way that she’d felt provoked towards uncharacteristic aggression. Still, she should have known better.

Oksana puts her head in her hands and begins to sob. While Anna struggles to form an apology, Oksana manages through her tears, “That figures. Just another grown-up who will fail me. Like all the rest.”

“I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to be so harsh–” Anna stammers. She’s usually eloquent (language being her thing), but now is a stuttering mess. 

“No, you’re right, you _should_ fail me, because I’m a useless, stupid, worthless, idiot. I’ve messed up this class just like I’ve messed up everything else,” Oksana cries. “If I’d only been a good girl, I never would have had to leave school in the first place, and maybe then I’d know how to be a good student for you!” She sniffs and sobs dramatically.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Anna says softly, taking a few steps towards the girl. “Every one of us has made mistakes, but it’s how you act now, in the present that defines you. You can always improve.”

“But I’ve already gotten off so far on the wrong foot…There’s no way I can pass this class now,” Oksana wails. “Unless you forgot about all the missed assignments, and then I worked really hard, but that would never happen,” she sighs wistfully.

“You can pass this class,” Anna says.

“Oh really? You’ll forgive the assignments? Thank you, Madam! You are the only person who has ever been able to see the good in me!” Oksana says, blinking away the tears and beaming with gratitude.

“No, I never said I’d forgive the assignments. Your marks are still zero. But I will give you the chance to make up the credit with extra work,” Anna says.

“Seriously?” Oksana grumbles, her demeanor immediately changing from anguish to exasperation. She casually wipes away tears as she asks, “After all the sad things that have happened to me, you won’t forgive a crying child over a few homework assignments?” She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “You’re a shit teacher.”

“I’d be a bad teacher if I let you coast by and fall short of your potential. Besides, I can tell you are capable of more.” Anna is stunned at Oksana’s ability to rapidly shift her emotions. She wonders what experiences had forced the girl to develop such a capacity to deceive.

“Of course I’m capable,” Oksana snaps. “But it isn’t worth my time.”

“How would you know? You haven’t even given it a chance,” Anna challenges the girl. 

“Oh yes!” Oksana says mockingly. “Maybe if I study hard, someday I can become a sad schoolteacher who has no one to speak French to, so all she can do is read boring books alone.”

“That’s not why I learned French,” Anna says.

“Then why?”

" _Parce que c'est beau. N'est-ce pas assez?_ ” Anna says.

Oksana scrunches her face up, annoyed that Anna has the audacity to switch languages, but also clearly too proud to ask what Anna had said.

Anna continues, “I may be just a Russian schoolteacher when I’m talking to you now, in Russian. But I can become someone different when I speek German, and when I speak French, I’m yet another woman entirely.” Anna surprises herself with this answer; it being a feeling that she had inside her for years but had never expressed aloud before. Suddenly embarrassed, she finishes her thought in French: “ _Je dois avouer que c’est agréable de s’échapper parfois. Je me demande si vous aimeriez aussi devenir quelqu'un d'autre_.”

As Anna finishes the phrase in French, Oksana listens intently. Then, after a few moments, she asks, “How many languages do you speak?”

“Seven, fluently. And a few more I’m working on.”

“How long did it take you to learn all of them?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been studying since childhood… twenty years or more.”

Oksana picks up _L’Etranger_ again and looks at the pages. “Twenty years…” She murmurs, almost to herself.

Anna notices Oksana transfixed on the book, and tells her, “Keep it. That can be your goal. Someday, in a year or two, you’ll be able to read that whole book and understand it.”

Oksana picks up the book without so much as a whit of gratitude and walks toward the door. 

“Come back tomorrow before school and I will help you make up some of the work you’ve skipped,” Anna says. “If you don’t come, I’ll assume you’ve decided you’d prefer a failing grade.”

Oksana nods, then runs a hand across the chalkboard, smudging the carefully written verb conjugation chart Anna had drawn up during class. She’s out the door, but Anna can see through the small window that Oksana sneaks a glance back to check Anna’s reaction to her exit.

Anna sighs and erases the mess left on the chalkboard. 

Once she makes it home that evening, Anna slips off her shoes and starts on dinner. By the time Maxi arrives and greets her with his usual kiss to her forehead, she’s just finished cooking the fish and is serving it onto two plates.

“Save some room,” she tells Maxi as he digs in. “I’ve got a cake in the oven.”

“Any special occasion?”

“No.”

“There must be something,” Maxi prods. “You’ve got that look in your eye. You’re planning something new.”

“It isn’t worthy of celebration yet, but I think I may have made some headway with a difficult student.”

“Which one?”

“The… difficult one. I think I told you about her.”

“The arsonist?”

“Yes,” Anna sighs. “But don’t call her that. I’m trying to give her a fresh start. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pretend to ignore her skipping assignments any longer, so I had a talk with her.”

“Should I get the fire department on speed dial?” Maxi jokes, then when he sees Anna’s chastising look, nods apologetically.

“It’s early to call it a victory but I think I may have gotten through to her. We are meeting again in the morning for me to help her catch up.”

“So I’ll miss you in the morning?” Maxi pouts.

“I’ll leave breakfast out for you,” Anna says, reaching out to hold Maxi’s hand.

“I suppose I will have to make peace with being second place to your need to help the less fortunate.”

Then the oven timer dings. “That’ll be the cake,” Anna says, rising to take it out of the oven. “I’ll add the glazed icing you like.”

“Have I mentioned today how much I love you, _Anyuta_?”

The following morning, Anna eats her breakfast, leaves some out for Maxi, and wraps up a slice of the leftover cake to bring with her. Maybe Oksana would soften her tough exterior when given a peace offering. No matter what has happened in her past, she rationalizes, she must like cake. 

Anna enters the classroom and finds it empty. _Of course._ She shouldn’t be as shocked as she is, but once again, she always expects the best from people. She’d actually believed she’d cracked through the girl’s tough exterior, but it seems she’s back to square one.

She goes to set up and finds a stack of papers left neatly in the center of her desk. The previous three weeks’ homework assignments – all of them. Each has the name written in neat cursive in the top right corner: _Oksana Astankova_.

And, Anna discovers with disbelief as she flips through, each and every assignment is completed to perfection.

And on the last assignment, written in the blank space at the bottom of the page, an extra sentence: “ _Ce qui vous a pris vingt ans, j'apprendrai en un_."

Anna clutches the paper, looks away, looks back. It seems Oksana will require an accelerated curriculum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I was done after my first foray into Killing Eve was supposed to be a oneshot but then turned into 25k words... but nope! This idea came into my head and wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> I'm not sure yet exactly how many chapters this will be, but I plan to make it all the way through their relationship until the big finish... it's fun to write a story where we know the ending, but not the full story of how we got there.
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Suggestions? Let me know!
> 
> (Apologies for my google-translate French; if any French speakers find errors in it let me know)


	2. Pinky Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really feeling the writer's block on my original writing, so the silver lining is I'm spending much more time on fic to procrastinate. Hope you enjoy :)

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am, Headmaster.” Anna sits across from Headmaster Popov, and can practically see her reflection in his shiny bald head. Everything in the headmaster’s office is fancier than anything in any other room of the school, from his polished wood desk, to his neatly framed diplomas on the wall, to his elegantly displayed fountain pen that probably cost as much as Anna got paid in a week. 

“She missed the first week of Elementary French, has only been here for two months, and you want to move her up to a higher level?” The Headmaster grumbles skeptically.

“It’s where she belongs.” She straightens up in the leather chair that’s so large it almost swallows her.

Headmaster Popov straightens the fancy fountain pen in its stand on his desk. “Madam Leonova, I’m sure you’re aware that this girl is a special case for our school. It’s understandable if there’s been difficulty handling her in class. If she’s been exhibiting any troubling behavior towards other students, or, indeed, towards you, please tell me. It does us no favors to turn a blind eye in a case like this.”

“I assure you, this request is purely based on her academic performance. In fact, if you are willing to consider it, I would like to offer her an independent study for additional credit, since I suspect she’ll soon outpace the students in Intermediate French as well.” Anna pulls out the curriculum change form she had prepared and places it in front of the Headmaster for his inspection.

“That’s highly unconventional.”

“You needn’t rearrange the schedule. I’ll give up my lunch period to meet with her.”

“I don’t know…”

Anna pushes the curriculum change form forward. “Headmaster, if you let me challenge this girl… She’s remarkable. She could bring a great amount of praise to the school.”

Headmaster Popov grumbles assent and signs the form, although Anna can’t help but wonder if he only wants an excuse to use his expensive pen.

  
And so Oksana moves into Intermediate French, but just as Anna predicted, she’s soon covering more ground in their independent studies than any of Anna’s most advanced students. 

“January fourteenth,” Oksana says, without looking up from the worksheet she’s filling out.

“What’s that?”

Oksana looks up at Anna. “I’m trying to guess when your birthday is. I take it that’s not it?”

“No. Focus on your work.”

“March second?”

“No.”

“Tell me if I’m getting close.”

“Focus on your work,” Anna repeats.

“I’d rather talk to you. Besides, I finished.”

Oksana slides her worksheet over to Anna, who begins running her pen down the page, checking it over.

“So? April then?” Oksana asks.

Anna puts down the pen. She can tell that she won’t have any luck getting discussing the assignment with Oksana at the moment, so she asks, “Have you made any friends?”

“You are my friend, Madam Leonova.”

“I mean with the other students.”

“They all want to be my friend.” Oksana smirks. Evidently she takes some satisfaction from the attention she’s received from the rest of the student body, although she’s never outwardly indicated it before. In fact, every time Anna sees other students try to interact with her, she icily keeps them at a distance. “They all want to hear the story. Don’t you want to hear the story?”

“What story?”

“What I did,” Oksana says, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Everyone is dying to know. I hear them whisper. But I’ll tell you, if you want.” Oksana pauses, then adds, _“En français.”_

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Anna says, firmly. 

“Admit it. You want to know,” Oksana prods her, a sly grin creeping onto her face.

“I don’t care what mistakes you made before.”

“I bet you do. I bet you spend all night thinking about what could make me do it.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t think about me at all?” Oksana sounds disappointed.

Anna feels bad about the slight hurt in the girls voice, so she backpedals. “I think about how to challenge you.”

“No one’s ever challenged me.”

“Well, it is a challenge to challenge you.” Anna can’t help but laugh slightly, and Oksana cracks a smile as well. “You’re learning so fast,” Anna says. “At this rate, you’ll probably be able to make some headway into _L’Etranger_. Of course, I can help if there are any parts you don’t understand yet.”

“Oh, that?” Oksana raises one eyebrow. “I finished that last week.”

“All of it?” Anna asks with disbelief. At some point, she should cease to be surprised at Oksana’s remarkable speed of learning the language, but she hadn’t hit that point yet.

“You really like that book? I found it dull.”

“It’s a classic,” Anna replies. “But I don’t know if I agree with its bleak take on the human condition. What did you think?”

“I think the guy should’ve cried at his mother’s funeral. It would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.”

“Maybe he wasn’t able to.”

“It’s not that hard.” Oksana frowns, deep in thought, and Anna waits with bated breath for what else she will have to say about the book – on Mersault’s murder and lack of affect, on his eventual execution… but when she eventually speaks, she says, “September?”

“Let’s keep our discussions related to class.”

Anna had hoped that drawing a firm line would encourage Oksana to back down, but she turns out to be as remarkably persistent with her desire to learn personal tidbits about Anna as she has been with learning French.

Within another few weeks, they’ve already reached the point of conversing mostly in French, but Anna hasn’t figured out how to deal with the constant non-sequiturs. 

“Let me hear your past conditional again.”

“When is your birthday?” Oksana counters. 

“Oksana, focus. Past conditional.”

“I already know all the conjugations. What I don’t know is your birthday.”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“I want to get you a present.”

“I’m your teacher.”

“So teach me what your birthday is. And your clothing sizes. A present’s no use if it doesn’t fit.”

“This independent study is still a class. I need you to focus.”

“So sorry. _I would have_ shown more consideration, but _you could have_ just answered my question. If it was another student, _he would have_ done what you asked right away. But then _we would have_ had so much less fun together.” Oksana smirks. “Shall I go on?”

“I wish you’d take this more seriously,” Anna says, switching back to Russian. “I practically had to beg Headmaster Popov to allow this.”

“Headmaster Popov looks like a thumb.”

Anna has to bite back a laugh at the accuracy of the description. She manages to keep her her stern look and continues, “If he doesn’t believe you’re making the most of this opportunity, he will take it away. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Oksana says quietly. 

“Good.”

“I don’t want you to go back to eating lunch alone. You’d be so sad without me to keep you company.”

Anna has built up a profoundly deep well of patience in her years as a teacher, but Oksana is always capable of drying it up it like no other student has before. She bites back the urge to retort and instructs Oksana, “Future conditional. Go.”

  
The semester flies by as Oksana flies through the French curriculum. It’s unbelievable to Anna that she’s been working with the girl for almost three months; it hardly feels like a week has passed when Anna enters the teacher’s lounge one evening with Maxi in tow for the teachers’ New Years party.

Anna is laughing at some joke Maxi had made about the decor when Bykovky calls across the room. “Anna! Max!”

Anna waits for him to walk over, but he stays planted where he is by the refreshments, waving eagerly, expecting them to walk over to him. Maxi rolls his eyes but grins as he takes Anna’s hand and walks with her towards Bykovsky.

“Happy New Year to the both of you!” Bykovksy slaps Maxi on the arm, a little too hard, and Anna can tell he’s a bit tipsy – not too surprising; Bykovsky was unmarried and anyone would get lonely this time of year.

“Max, have you heard what your wife has been accomplishing? This little hellion appears in our fine school, absolutely _refuses_ to do any work, and no other teacher can make sense of her… but Anna, she has the girl skipping grade levels in languages!”

“My wife is quite remarkable,” Maxi agrees, and kisses Anna gently.

“Maybe you should be the psychology teacher, eh?” Bykovsky puts an arm around Anna now, and almost spills some of his drink on her as it sloshes in his cup.

“I don’t know about that.”

“You seem to understand the machinations of her brain better than any of us. What’s the secret?”

Maxi turns his head cheekily, and asks, “Yeah, what’s the secret?” There is a hint of genuine interest beneath his teasing manner.

“There’s no secret,” Anna replies. “I teach, she learns.”

“Ah! So your strategy is not to acknowledge her past in any way at all. Clever.” Bykovsky nods thoughtfully as if congratulating himself for his observation. “Would you mind sitting for an interview? I could write a paper about this.”

Anna blushes. “Wouldn’t you rather speak to Oksana yourself?”

“Oh no. No no no,” Bykovsky says quickly, with a laugh. “I’m afraid of her, you see.”

Maxi counters, “She’s perfectly harmless. She hasn’t done anything to Anna.” Then he pauses, and looks at Anna with concern. “Has she?”

“Of course not,” Anna reassures him.

Bykovsky continues, “Still, it’s a marvel. You have somehow molded her into a star pupil when she’s failing all her other classes.”

“She is?” Anna snaps to attention.

“From what her other teachers have told me, it seems unlikely she’ll be promoted next year. But isn’t this good news for you? If she takes extra years to finish school, you could teach her dozens of languages…”

Bykovsky goes on for a few more minutes, but Anna is hardly paying attention to his drunk ramblings on the potential of stimulating the brain’s language center to aid in psychological rehabilitation. She worries all through the night.

  
The next day, she confronts Oksana, feeling comfortable enough with the girl now to approach it less delicately than she had the initial confrontation about her own class. “You’re failing all your other classes?”

“What do you care?”

Anna fixes a stern glare on Oksana, and says in her most teacherly voice,“You need to pass your classes.”

“Why?”

“So you can go onto twelfth grade.”

“Why?”

“So you can _graduate_.”

“I should warn you, I can do this all day, and I think you will lose your patience before I will.”

Anna takes a deep breath, trying to calm her anger. “Why do you only try in my class?”

“So you have someone to speak French to.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me you were in danger of being held back?”

“It didn’t seem important. It wasn’t relevant to your class.”

“Your education is important to me.”

“Ah, so _now_ you want to talk about life outside of class? You can’t have it both ways, Anna Ivanovna.”

A chill runs down Anna’s spine. How had Oksana learned her full name? Not that it was some government-protected secret, but she was quite sure she’d never told the girl, nor left personal documents on her desk or what have you, so… Had she asked another teacher? Gone poking around in Anna’s bag and found her ID? Broken into the school records? She is dying to know, but doesn’t dare ask: the girl looks too proud of herself already.

Anna feels unsettled for a reason she can’t quite identify. There is nothing wrong with Oksana knowing her name, per se, but it is nonetheless an intrusion, a breach of the invisible wall that is supposed to keep her separated from her students.

It is a minute or so before Anna has the wherewithal to speak again. “Other teachers ask me how I got you to play along in my class. I tell them, I don’t know.”

“Really?” Okana leans forward, resting her elbows on Anna’s desk. “You have _no_ idea?”

“No.” Anna scoots back a few inches in her chair, restoring the distance between her and her student. “If I did, I’d happily tell them, because there’s no reason for someone as smart as you to be held back a year.”

“I’d get to spend more time with you.”

“No, Oksana,” Anna says plainly. Somehow she’s stooped to a childish back-and-forth. 

“Yes!” Oksana cries out.

“No!” Anna says, a little too loudly, and stops herself for another deep breath. She can’t allow herself to get too heated. She begins again, more in control, and offers the only bargaining chip she can think of. “If I hear from other teachers that you’ve started to put an effort into other classes… I will tell you when my birthday is.”

Oksana immediately brightens up at that. “Tell me!”

“Promise you will make an effort.”

Oksana reaches out and takes Anna’s hand, sending a shiver through Anna’s body like a static shock. “I pinky promise,” she says solemnly, wrapping her pinky around Anna’s.

“June twentieth,” Anna says. Some small part of her panics as she says it, afraid to part with the precious particle of privacy that keeps her a mysterious inaccessible figure to her students. But then, what could be the harm of a simple birthdate? The girl had already discovered Anna’s full name somehow; surely she would’ve gotten the birthday one way or another eventually.

“I didn’t expect you to give in so soon,” Oksana says, then pouts. “You must really want to get rid of me.”

“I never said I want to get rid of you,” Anna protests. “I said I want you to graduate.”

The bell rings, and Oksana gathers her school bag, moving towards the door. “I am not going to ace them, just so you know. I will barely pass.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” Anna concedes. Then, right as the girl is about to step out the door, she adds, “Oksana?”

Oksana turns her head.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oksana is such an obnoxious little shit and I love her!
> 
> It's interesting for me to consider the differences in how Eve deals with Villanelle's obnoxiousness and how Anna deals with it.
> 
> What do you think? Let me know!
> 
> And come be my friend on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) too.


	3. Wear It Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to a schedule conflict, Anna begins giving Oksana extra lessons at her house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to get this chapter out sooner, but had a really busy week. Hope you enjoy!

Anna settles into a comfortable routine with Oksana. She provides the language expertise and the assignments, and Oksana gobbles them up like some kind of language vulture. After only one semester, they are already to the point of discussing what language Oksana would like to try next, since she’s effectively finished the entire French curriculum. After some debate, they agree that she will join Anna’s Intermediate German class (she should be able to catch on quickly enough), but she will continue to practice her French in their private lessons.

There’s one problem, however. With the other courses that Oksana is required to take in order to graduate on time (including some she had to re-take after failing them in the fall), she has no room in her schedule for the spring semester for an independent study. No chance for Anna to plead with Headmaster Popov this time; it simply is not possible. 

Oksana is not happy when Anna breaks the news to her.

“I’ll get rid of math,” she declares.

“No, Oksana, you need another math course to graduate.”

“History, then. Who even cares about what happened so long ago?”

“I’m not happy about it either, but it just isn’t going to work out. You’ll have German, at least.” For some reason, Anna had almost said, _“We’ll have German”_ , but had corrected herself in time.

“What about French?”

“Your French is impeccable.”

“But I have to speak it regularly to maintain it,” Oksana insists. “When will I get to speak French with you?”

“I’m sorry.”

Oksana looks down, sulking. Anna notices her lip quivering ever so slightly. Is Oksana about to cry, or burst out in rage?

The words begin to pour out of Anna’s mouth before she is even aware of what she’s saying. “There’s another way,” she says. “You wouldn’t get school credit but… You could come to my house on Saturdays and we could continue our lessons that way.”

Oksana brightens immediately. “You had me at come to your house.”

Anna frowns, realizing she’s gotten ahead of herself. “Would your parents be alright with that?”

“My father will not even notice if I’m gone.”

  
On the first Saturday of the spring semester, Anna tidies the house with extra care. She had thanked Maxi about a hundred times for agreeing to let her teach in their house, and baked him a batch of coconut cookies, one of his favorite treats, as an extra gesture.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “I’m not doing you a special favor. I’m your husband. It’s my job to support you.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t still get to appreciate you,” Anna replies, giving him a kiss. The doorbell rings, prompting them to pull apart. Anna moves towards the door, but Maxi gets there first and swings it open.

“Hello, you must be Oksana. I’m Max. Or should you call me Mr. Leonov since I’m your teacher’s husband?” Maxi laughs at his own joke, but Oksana just stares blankly, so he continues, “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to our home. Anna – I mean, Madam Leonova – has told me lots about you.”

Oksana takes a few steps into the apartment and says in French, “ _De bonnes choses, j'espère._ ”

Anna takes Oksana’s coat, and says, “Um – You’ll have to use Russian with Max.”

_ “Il ne parle pas français?” _

“ _Non_. I mean, no.”

_ “Parfait. Où travaillons-nous?” _

Anna leads Oksana to the kitchen table, and shoots Maxi a look, to communicate: “Don’t mind her.”

The lesson goes well. Anna had worried a bit about how Oksana might act once invited into her house, since she has so much trouble with respecting boundaries, but Oksana had behaved remarkably well, other than her odd refusal to engage with Maxi. Anna suspects that Oksana is on her best behavior for now to ensure Anna doesn’t threaten to end their private lessons, but will begin to test the boundaries again in the future.

Once she is dismissed for the day, Anna looks to Maxi. “Well?”

“You were right.” He says. “She looks so… ordinary.”

“But she’s anything but ordinary.”

Maxi sits in the chair across from Anna, where Oksana had sat only a minute ago. “How long do you see this going on for?”

“What?”

“Your lessons, here.”

“I thought you said it was alright.”

Maxi gazes at the table sheepishly. “Yes…”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No. It’s just unusual to have a student in our house.”

“That’s why I asked you if it was alright, and you said yes…”

“It’s fine, Anna, alright? I don’t mind it. Truly. I’m just wondering how long-term it will be.”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to help her achieve her full potential.”

“And when will that happen?”

Anna pauses, having never before considered what the completion of her work with Oksana might look like. “Either, she will reach her intellectual capacity, or she will keep guzzling down languages one after another until I don’t have any more to teach her. I really don’t know which will happen first. Maxi, did you hear her? She’s practically fluent in French already.”

“I did hear. Although I have to wonder if she speaks Russian at all.”

Anna rolls her eyes. “She was just being cheeky. Don’t take it personally.”

“It’s hard not to.”

“She’s rude to everyone.”

“Did I say something wrong? I was quite polite, I thought.”

“No, you were wonderful, of course. I think she doesn’t trust men.”

The thought hadn’t fully crystallized until Anna said it aloud, but once she does, it rings true. Anna has no conclusive evidence to support this hypothesis, only hunches: the way Oksana had warmed up to her but despised the rest of her (male) teachers, and the few times Anna noticed Oksana interacting with other students in a harmless way, it was always with other girls. Even the sample sentences Oksana would write on her French assignments had a subtle yet persistent gender bias to them: _She is beautiful; he is an oaf._ And so on.

Maxi considers this for a moment, then declares, “Well, if she’s going to be in our house a lot, make sure she knows she can trust me.”

“She will, in time. Because you are the best person in the world.”

“No, you are, _Anyuta._ ”

  
Meanwhile, Anna continues to see Oksana in school. Even with an enire classroom full of students, Anna sometimes forgets she’s teaching a full group and feels compelled to speed up to the pace she’d grown accustomed to in satisfying Oksana’s ravenous appetite to learn. But she remembers, and slows down to her normal pace. 

Soon, Anna is forced to abandon a theory some small part of her had been clinging to, that Oksana had already been fluent in French when she’d arrived at the school and had only pretended to learn it so fast for attention and praise. This theory is debunked when Oksana tears through German with just as much speed, if not moreso, than that with which she’d tackled French.

She is relieved to confirm with the other instructors that Oksana has, as she promised Anna, started to do the bare minimum to pass all of her required classes. 

Every so often, once a week or so, Oksana will complain about her schoolwork and goad Anna into offering another personal tidbit. Her dress size. Her favorite kind of tea. Her mother’s name. Each fact harmless on its own, but each chips away at the crumbling facade of status difference between her and Oksana. To Anna’s dismay, with each passing day, the line teaching the girl and simply conversing with her grows more and more blurred.

  
“Do we have to stay here? Can’t we go to the park or the café?” Oksana pleads.

“We’re working.”

“The weather’s so nice today.”

“Which only proves my point. You’d be even more distracted outside.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of saying ‘no’ all the time?”

“Yes,” Anna says. “So stop making me.”

The meetings have settled into a comfortable routine, which means of course Oksana has needed something else to push for, and she’s set her sights on having some other kind of outing with Anna, it seems. 

After a few more reminders from Anna, Oksana finishes her assignment for the day, and says, “Can’t we go out now?”

“No. Maxi and I have plans.”

“So what? You see him all the time.”

Anna chuckles. “He is my husband. I can never spend enough time with him. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“I understand now.” Oksana says. “But I think it’s sad that he will never be able to hear everything you have to say.”

“He is a great listener.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“The lesson is over,” Anna gets up and opens the door. “Go home, Oksana.”

That night, she regrets using such a harsh tone. But what else can she do, when Oksana pushes her so far? She has no choice but to push back.

  
It’s funny how Oksana always seems to get what she wants, one way or another. The following Saturday, it rains, and the ceiling of Anna’s kitchen springs a leak. Maxi places a pot underneath to catch the drips, but the ceiling requires serious repairs. Maxi, with his magical charisma, somehow manages to convince the repairman to come out that very morning. 

When Oksana arrives, Anna is in the middle of putting on her coat. “Your wish has been granted. We’ll have to relocate for today.”

Oksana grins and flips the hood of her jacket back up.

 _It would’ve been much nicer to go out last week,_ Anna thinks, but Oksana’s spirits are not dampened by the damp weather. She skips along happily in the grey drizzle as if it were a fine summer day. 

_Is she really happy to be out here in the rain?_ Anna wonders. _Or to be away from Maxi?_

Oksana unwittingly answers that question by stomping in a huge puddle with both feet, splashing water all over Anna’s tights. 

“Got you!” she squeals. “Oh, I got you bad.”

Anna shakes her legs to try to get some of the moisture off, though it’s not very effective. “You got me, indeed. Shall we find somewhere out of the rain?”

“Oh, fine.”

They duck into a small café that provides dry refuge and order some hot tea. Anna makes a token effort to drill Oksana on her irregular verbs, but within a few minutes they’ve slipped into casual conversation. 

“What did you think when you first met me?” Oksana asks.

Anna mulls it over for a moment. “I thought you were overwhelmed. I thought you were skipping your work because you weren’t prepared for school. But now I know it was the school that wasn’t prepared for you.”

“How poetic,” Oksana says.

“What about you?” Anna’s curiosity has been piqued now. “What did you think of me?”

“What did I think of you?”

“It’s only fair. You asked me, so now you answer.”

“You never ask me questions.”

“Teachers are supposed to have answers, not questions.”

“And what’s changed?”

“I guess I’m distracted. It’s hard to focus here, after all.”

“When I first saw you I thought, ‘I’d kill for hair like that.’”

Anna blushes. “ _My_ hair?”

“It’s amazing. So thick.”

“It’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Anna says, running a finger through her curls self-consciously.

Oksana leans over the table, fingers outstretched, and Anna’s breath catches in her throat, too afraid to stop her. 

Oksana notes Anna’s small flinch, and asks, “May I?” 

Anna considers, then nods. The curiosity in Oksana’s eyes is so pure, and so intense; she doesn’t know how to say no.

Oksana touches Anna’s hair gently. “It’s softer than it looks.”

She withdraws her hand, and Anna feels her hair fall back down onto her shoulders, and onto her face– _what?_ She reaches up and grabs her hair again and realizes Oksana stole away her hair clip.

“Give it back,” she demands, holding out her palm.

“It looks so nice like this.”

“Oksana, don’t ruin the whole morning. Give it back.”

Oksana drops the clip in Anna’s palm but adds, “You should wear it down sometimes.”

“Suggestion noted,” Anna says, clipping her hair back like before. Oksana’s comments were flattering, yes, but she much preferred to have her hair out of her face. Practicality was more of a priority to her than beauty.

Was it really only a month or two ago that Anna had clung to her policy of not discussing anything besides class with Oksana? Suddenly she looks back and takes stock of every grain, every tidbit of herself that she has let slip in her lessons with Oksana, lessons that had turned into simply conversations… and she feels naked, exposed. How could she let this happen? How could she be so irresponsible, to let a student know her not as a teacher, but as a person?

Despite Anna’s best efforts to prevent it, Oksana has become her friend. Anna knows she should feel more worried, more uncomfortable with that fact, but she’s never been so relieved to admit defeat.

The waiter comes and drops off the check, and while Anna is busy rummaging in her purse, Oksana places a few crumpled ruble bills on the table.

“My treat,” she says triumphantly.

And it’s a small moment, but the girl is smiling, and Anna feels full of pride on her behalf. A year ago, Oksana had been in who-knows-what state, locked up in that delinquent center… Of course, Anna hadn’t seen what she was like back then, but she imagined her being sad, alone, angry at the world for putting her there, angry at herself for her mistakes that had landed her there.

But Anna does remember what Oksana was like seven months ago, on that first day in Anna’s Elementary French class. Even then, Oksana had been so guarded, standoffish, suspicious and ready to lash out. That was a far cry from the girl she saw before her now… confident. Relaxed. Hardworking. Happy.

It’s amazing how much people can grow when they are given the smallest amount of love. And for her part, Anna feels quite proud to be the one providing that love. Although she isn’t particularly religious, she offers a quick thanks to God if He’s listening, for putting Oksana in her class. She can only imagine what might have happened if they hadn’t been brought together. None of the other teachers had the patience to get past Oksana’s obnoxious exterior, but Anna knew that anyone who worked that hard to push other people away was protecting something vulnerable inside, and so she had stayed. 

This moment, she realizes, is her reward. You plant the seeds for success within a student, and you stay around to watch them blossom. None of the other teachers would ever know how lucky she was. Indeed, they still feared Oksana; Anna could always hear the relief in their voices when they’d mention her, happy that Anna had taken her off of their hands. But it’s their loss that they’d never get to know this clever, cutting, inquisitive, and indeed – loving – student.

“Oksana…” Anna starts.

“Don’t lecture me,” Oksana cuts in. “I want to pay. It’s the least I can do. You bake something every week, so it’s my turn.”

“I was just going to say I’m proud of you.”

“You’re so sentimental, _Anyuta_.”

Anna straightens up like she’s heard a shot. “Stop that.”

“What?”

“You know.”

“I don’t,” Oksana says innocently.

“You _know_.”

“What? I can’t call you by your name? I thought you got over that.”

“No, it’s just… never mind.”

“What?”

“We should go.” Anna pulls her jacket on. “Can you find your way home from here?”

“Of course. But I can walk you home.”

“No, that’s alright. I’ll see you next Saturday.”

“You’ll see me on Monday. In German class. Remember?”

“Yes. Right.”

“Are you okay?” Oksana looks into her eyes with the most genuine concern Anna has ever seen from her. She was constantly pushing Anna’s buttons, trying to get her to blow up, but now she’s concerned? 

“I’m fine. I’ll see you Monday.”

As Anna walks home, she tries her hardest to think of something, anything other than Oksana, but how can she when she sees her reflection in every puddle, hears her laugh with every raindrop?

She can’t shake the feeling of foreboding, even when Maxi greets her at home with a fixed ceiling and a warm lunch. 

Maxi can tell she’s preoccupied; he always can. “Is something wrong, _Anyuta_?”

“I’m just feeling a bit off,” Anna tells him. “But I think it will pass.” Perhaps if she believes it strongly enough, it will come true. 

It will pass. It will pass. It will pass. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Villanelle's obsession with Eve's hair had to come from somewhere, didn't it?
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Chapter four should be up more quickly than this one was.
> 
> In the meantime you can also find me on [tumblr!](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/)


	4. Do I Hear a Waltz?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Oksana nearly gets herself expelled, Anna must compel her to behave properly, feeding the girl's ever-growing appetite for intimacy.

In retrospect, Anna should’ve known why she was called down to Headmaster Popov’s office. She’s quite shocked when an assistant bursts into her Elementary Spanish class to tell her she must come with him immediately. 

When she reaches the main office, she’s thrust into the middle of a commotion: the Headmaster has a look of consternation on his face, while Gregorov, the physical education instructor, is screaming at him, red in the face.

“I want her expelled! Nothing less!” he bellows. 

“Please calm down. We will discuss an appropriate course of action.” The beleaguered headmaster notices Anna. “Madam Leonova, thank you for coming.”

“What’s going on?”

“That Astankova girl is about to be expelled, that’s what’s going on!” A vein in Gregorov’s temple throbs so wildly it looks like it may burst.

“Expelled?” Anna’s throat tightens. What on earth had happened?

“Nothing is decided yet.” The Headmaster looks exhausted as he begins to explain. “There was a bit of a stir in Gregorov’s class, it seems.”

“A bit of a stir? She attacked me! And another student!” Gregorov howls.

“You look fine to me,” Anna says. 

“Egor Smirnov is with the nurse right now, getting patched up for a broken hand!”

“Just the finger,” Headmaster Popov corrects him.

“ _Three_ fingers!” Gregorov shouts.

“Why have you called me here?” Anna asks.

“Well…” The Headmaster looks almost embarrassed. “She won’t speak to any of us about what happened. She’s been asking for you.”

“And why would we give her exactly what she’s asking for?” Gregorov says. “We cannot reward such bad behavior!”

A knot begins to grow in Anna’s stomach. Is this really the end of Oksana’s time at their school? Had she used up her last chance, and gone back to her violent ways? Is there no more to be done to help her?

The Headmaster pulls Anna aside and speaks quietly so Gregorov won’t hear. “Being perfectly honest, if what Gregorov has told me is true, I have no choice but to expel Ms. Astankova. But if you can get her side of the story… If there’s any way to spin it…”

“You don’t want to lose the money you receive for keeping her here.”

The Headmaster puffs with indignation. “Quite the contrary! I’m giving you a chance to keep your star student, Madam Leonova. Go in there and don’t come out until you get a sympathetic story and an apology.” 

He leads Anna to the door of his office. Before he turns the knob, he adds, “Madam Leonova. She asked for _Anna_. Over and over. ‘I will only speak to Anna’. It took us some time to realize she meant you.”

“Oh.”

“Do you make a habit of telling students to call you by your first name?”

“No, Headmaster. In fact, I don’t know how she discovered it. I’ve been trying to get her to stop.” That last bit is a lie; Anna had protested against the use of her first name for only a week or so, but gave up once it was clear her protests made no difference, so Oksana had been addressing her as “Anna” for several months now.

“Fix it. We don’t need anything else out of the ordinary with this girl. She’s on thin ice, do you understand? Very thin.” 

The Headmaster opens the door and leads Anna into his office. Oksana sits in the huge leather chair where Anna had sat on occasion while meeting with the Headmaster, drumming her fingers on the dark wooden surface of the desk.

“Hello, Oksana,” Anna says.

Oksana remains quiet and fixes such a glare on the Headmaster that he shuffles bashfully out of his own office. Once she hears the click of the door shutting, Oksana turns to Anna and cheerfully greets her, “How is Spanish class? Have you gotten to past tense yet?”

“Tell me what happened. No games. We don’t have time for that.” Anna sits in the Headmaster’s chair, hoping it will make her feel more powerful.

“You tell me.”

“They say you attacked another student.”

“That is correct.”

Anna can’t believe how easily Oksana admits to it. “And a teacher?”

“Also true.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They want to expel you! Unless you have an explanation – a really good one – you’ll be back at the reformatory by bedtime.”

Oksana rolls her eyes, but begins telling the story. “We were dancing. Waltz. Gregorov made us pair up, boys and girls. Egor was shit at leading, by the way, but that’s not why I broke his hand.”

“Why?”

“He touched my ass.”

Anna’s face flushes. “Well, that’s understandable. Why didn’t you just tell the Headmaster and Gregorov yourself?”

“Because Gregorov is the one that told him to do it.” Oksana says. “He said,” – Oksana slips into a remarkably uncanny impression of the gym teacher’s voice – “‘If she won’t follow where you lead, don’t be afraid to give her a push in the right direction.’ Then he laughed, so I slapped him. Of course, that part didn’t make it into the version he told the Headmaster.”

Anna looks into Oksana’s eyes, searching for clues. She’s inclined to believe the story, especially because she’s never liked Gregorov much, but it’s Oksana’s word against her fellow teacher’s, and she knows for a fact that Oksana is a skilled liar. _But she wouldn’t call me in here specially and then lie to me, would she?_

Either way, it’s clear which version of events the Headmaster would rather hear, so Anna nods. “I’m going to call Headmaster Popov in here, and you’re going to tell him what you just told me. Then, you’re going to tell Gregorov how sorry you are.”

“But I’m not.”

“Then pretend.” Anna stands up, taking charge. “And you’ll have to do the same for Egor once the nurse is finished with him, so get ready for that, too.”

“Fine. I’ll be convincing.” Oksana rises to Anna’s eye level. “But _you_ will know I don’t mean it.”

Anna wonders why Oksana is placing so much emphasis on Anna’s reaction to this situation. It has nothing to do with her. She’s still confused as to why she was brought in in the first place. She should be teaching – she does have other students besides Oksana to worry about, after all!

“One more thing. No more calling me Anna in front of other teachers and students. It’s not proper.”

For a moment, Anna expects Oksana to fight back, but instead she nods politely. “Certainly, Madam Leonova.”

Anna calls the Headmaster back into the office, and as expected, Oksana puts on a moving performance, complete with fluttering eyelashes and glistening tears, making it easy for the Headmaster to offer her another chance, pending a grand apology. 

Then he brings Gregorov in, and Oksana manages a sobbing yet earnest apology, which even softens the instructor’s rage. Though he still insists her version of events is false, he relents in the face of her tears and shuffles off in defeat. In the midst of it, Oksana flashes Anna a triumphant look, too brief for either of the men to notice. _“See, I told you so,”_ it says. 

  
Anna is glad that the following day is Saturday, so she doesn’t have to wait long for a chance to continue this discussion at her house, where she doesn’t have to be so careful. Luckily, Maxi is out at the market, so she’ll be able to speak frankly with Oksana at the end of the lesson. 

Halfway through her lesson plan, Anna can’t wait any longer, and blurts out, “Was it true?”

“What?”

“The story you told me. Egor and Gregorov. Did it really happen?”

“You think I would lie to you?” Oksana pouts.

“I think you’re clever at coming up with stories,” Anna says. “It’s alright if it’s not. I won’t tell them, of course, I don’t want you to be expelled. I just want to know.”

“If you didn’t believe me in the first place, then why would you believe me now, when I tell you it _is_ true?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Do you believe me or not?”

“I do. But Oksana, you have to learn to control yourself. Even when people behave horribly, you can’t resort to violence. One more incident like that, and there will be nothing I can do to stop them from taking you away.”

“And…?” 

Anna knows Oksana is baiting her, but she is too tired to deflect. “I don’t want you to go.”

Oksana smiles. “I’ll stay out of trouble. For your sake.”

“Even if dancing is not your favorite, you can grin and bear it.” Anna’s thoughts drift to the nights she’d spent dancing with Maxi, when they’d first started dating. “Maybe you’ll grow to like it in time. I enjoy the waltz, myself.”

“So do I,” Oksana says. “I only wish I had a good partner.”

Suddenly, Oksana rises and glides over to the sideboard where Maxi’s small, outdated stereo sits on the shelf. She draws her finger over the rack of CDs, then pulls one out and pops it into the player. Strains of classical piano music begin to float out from the speakers, and Oksana clicks the skip button a few times until she’s satisfied with whatever movement begins to play.

She returns to the table and stretches out a hand to Anna. “May I?”

Anna laughs, but Oksana keeps her hand stretched out; it seems she’s serious. “How would that even work?”

“Don’t worry,” Oksana assures her. “I can lead much better than Egor Smirnov can.”

Anna’s heart begins to pound, for some reason, though her head does its level best to calm her. _What’s the harm?_ They’d already practiced German plenty, and perhaps entertaining this notion would get Oksana to behave better once she was back in class, and keep her from mutilating another unlucky partner in the future. So she takes Oksana’s hand, and begins following to the beat – one two three, one two three.

Oksana’s boast turns out to be well founded: she leads as well as any man Anna has ever danced with, smooth and confident in the moves. Anna feels odd dancing with someone hardly taller than she is, but as the music goes on and Oksana’s steps never falter, it starts to feel normal in its own way, a new way. She focuses on counting to the beat, so she won’t miss a step, and so she won’t think about how she’s holding her student’s hand, or how Oksana’s other hand rests on her hip.

Anna isn’t entirely sure how long they dance for, but she hears the sounds of footsteps and a key in the door and breaks away from Oksana’s grip, runs to turn off the stereo, and just manages to make it back to her spot at the kitchen table as Maxi opens the door.

“Hello. I thought I heard music,” he says.

“Yes,” Anna improvises quickly. “I thought some Mozart might make a nice addition to the German lesson.”

“That’s odd. It sounded like Prokofiev to me,” Maxi says, hanging up his coat. 

Anna bites the inside of her cheek; she has never been a very good liar. “My mistake. I must have mixed up the discs, and I don’t have your ear for music.”

Maxi doesn’t seem to be bothered by the inconsistency. “Don’t turn it off on my account! I love his _Cinderella_.”

Oksana moves toward the stereo, but Anna grabs her hand to stop her. “No more,” she says, switching to French. “It’s not–” 

Oksana joins her on the last word, “proper.”

Oksana sits, brooding. “I can’t speak to you at school, now we have to tiptoe around here as well? When will I ever get to speak to you?”

“We’re speaking now.”

“I mean, really speak to you. Just us.”

“There will be times. Here and there.”

“I don’t know if I can control myself,” Oksana says. “It’s difficult. To resist the temptation to hurt stupid men, and to resist the temptation to speak to you? I don’t think I can do both.”

Anna blushes. How on Earth can she respond to that? She suddenly feels guilty for what she’s asking of Oksana, although she knows it’s hardly much to expect her to behave appropriately… Then she gets an idea.

She goes to a cupboard and withdraws some stationery and nice pens she’d been keeping for ages, but hardly ever found a use for. “Take these,” she places them in front of Oksana. “Anytime you feel there is something you want to say or do that you know you shouldn’t, write it down. Then you can give them to me.”

Oksana examines the papers and envelopes. “Will you write me back?”

“Of course.”

Oksana takes the stationery. “I will try my best to resist temptation. Only for you.”

Anna sighs with relief once Oksana goes, though she has no idea if her plan will help the girl control her urges or not. Soon after the door shuts, Maxi comes up behind her, taking her in his arms.

“You know, _Anyuta_ , that music reminded me, it’s been ages since we went dancing.”

“Maxi…”

“How about tonight?”

“I’m a bit tired, and I have dozens of assignments to grade.”

“Are you alright?” Maxi looks at her with concern. “You look a bit flushed.”

“Maybe a touch of a cold.”

“I’ll make tea.”

Maxi kisses Anna, presses play on the stereo, and hums along to Prokofiev as he goes to the kitchen. 

Anna packs up the rest of the stationery, and places it in her school bag. Perhaps the act of writing will help her as well, for it seems the list of things she knows she shouldn’t do grows longer each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the [music they danced to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHVSbzneuTI) :) I love me some Prokofiev.
> 
> Happy holidays, friends! Please let me know any thoughts/feelings/reactions you have!
> 
> Or come share your best KE hot takes with me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/%22)!


	5. In Twenty-First Century Russia, We Write Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna finds Oksana to be very forward in their face to face conversations, but she is not prepared in the slightest for how direct Oksana can be in writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the chapter title is a shameless reference to [Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqiCObZh-rA)

My dearest Anna,

I’m taking out this paper and writing, just like you said, because I am about to be overwhelmed by temptation and I don’t think I can hold it in another minute. As I write this, I’m sitting German class. You are teaching us sports-related vocabulary. You have a smudge of chalk on your blouse, though you haven’t noticed it. But you do notice me. I can see every time your eyes flicker over me, and then flick away. You don’t want me to notice you looking, but I do. 

How I’d like to run over to you and wipe away that smudge! But that would interrupt the class, and you wouldn’t like that. So I shall wait, and I shall write. 

I have been thinking that I’d like to learn English next. From the bits I have heard, I think it is not so different from French and German, so it should be easy. I would like it very much if you could help me fulfill this desire.

Always thinking of you,  
Oksana

—

Oksana,

Thank you for your letter. I appreciate you entertaining my suggestion, and I especially appreciate you deciding not to jump and and interrupt my lesson. You are right that I would not have been happy. 

I would love to teach you English. You are correct that it is closely related to French and German, but it is a tricker language than it seems. Spelling is the greatest challenge; nearly every rule has exceptions, and each exception has its own exceptions. Nonetheless I have no doubt you will be able to conquer it. 

Have you ever thought about where you might travel, now that you are becoming fluent in so many languages? French and German already would allow you to find your way in much of Europe, and English would open up much of the world as well. Where would you like to go, if you had the choice?

Anna

—

My favorite Anna,

I have little interest in travel. In fact, I have little interest in anything outside the borders of Russia, or outside the borders of this very classroom. I only wish to be with you, wherever you may be. I would follow you across rivers and plains, mountains and seas if I had to. Right now that is unnecessary. Right now you are only a few feet away from me. You’re looking over Yelizaveta Kuzmina’s paper, leaning over her desk, so close to her that I could scream. It was not so hard to watch you teaching other students before, when we had our private times, and I knew you saved the best of yourself for me. But now, even our special meetings are tainted. You are not the same, you are always withdrawn, and I know it is because he is there in the other room. 

Only a few feet between you and me, but it may as well be miles. When can we be alone again?

Oksana

—

Oksana,

You should consider travel. I think you might like it. I travelled through Europe after finishing high school and it was part of what stoked my love for languages. If I had to pick one place to return to, I must say, Paris was my favorite. Beautiful art, delicious food, and high-class fashion at every turn. My father always said that travel was necessary to becoming a well-rounded person, and I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity. Perhaps after you graduate, you could see it yourself. 

  
Anna

—

My sweet Anna,

Paris sounds lovely, though I prefer to be here, where I am the only person you can speak French to. However, the idea of a trip with you might make a very nice incentive to graduate. It is like torture each day to sit in the most pointless classes and be asked to do the most demeaning tasks simply because those other fools that call themselves “teachers” demand it. None of them has anything at all worthwhile to offer. You are the only one who has something of substance, something I can use. The words we share, and the people we become when we speak those words – those are infinitely more beautiful than any science or history. For you, and for you alone, I labor on. 

Oksana

—  
My tender Anna, 

I am growing frustrated. It has been too long since we’ve been able to spend time alone together. When you suggested writing letters, I did not realize you meant it as a complete substitution for any extended conversations. How can I survive on mere paragraphs? I do not like this. 

Oksana

—  
Oksana,

I’m sorry you are feeling frustrated. I miss the frequency of our conversations as well; however, it was beginning to cause people to talk. You and I may know we’re doing nothing wrong, but other teachers turn their heads and gossip. It’s better to communicate this way, for now.

Perhaps it will be more engaging for you if we begin writing in English, so you can practice. What do you think of that?

Anna

—

My precious Anna,

French or English, it makes no difference to me. I only want to be speaking with you rather than writing. In a letter, I cannot look into your eyes; I cannot see, touch, smell, hear, nor taste you. I hope you are able to come up with another solution, because otherwise I am not sure what I may do.

The one and only advantage letters have over speaking face to face is that I can carry your letters with me everywhere. I can read them while I am trapped in my other classes, and I can take in your words over and over again at my leisure. I can clutch your letters to my heart as I lay in my bed, and picture where you were when you wrote them. Please, if this is all we have – write me back, write more and more. I cannot wait for your next letter. Now, now, I need it now!

Oksana

—

Oksana,

I promise, I will continue to write you back. There’s no need to worry. I am glad you are finding ways to make the best of this situation. This coming week may prove difficult as I shall be busy preparing for final exams, and on top of that, Maxi’s parents are staying with us for the week, through Easter. I am telling you this because I want you to be aware that I may not be able to write to you as much this week. I hope that knowing this, you can be patient and not act rashly.

Anna

P.S.: Your English is coming along very well, but I must correct one error in your last letter: you wrote “I lay in my bed”, but the verb “lay” is transitive; you should instead write, “I lie in my bed”. 

—  
Oksana,

I fear it may be redundant to begin by telling you how angry I am, but I shall nonetheless. It was completely inappropriate for you to show up at my house unannounced. I don’t care that you acted innocent and convinced everyone you were lost with nowhere else to go; I don’t care that Maxi’s mother took a liking to you; I don’t care that she begged you to stay for dinner. You may be able to charm people easily, but that does not change the rules of what is proper and what is not. These rules exist for a reason, Oksana, and you may not like them, but in order to survive in society, you will have to learn to live within them.

I also fear that you perhaps believe that I have limited us to letters because I do not wish to see you. This could not be further from the truth. So far, I have been trying to set a postive example for you by maintaining a good attitude about the situation, but I realize now that I may have given you a false impression that it is easy for me. On the contrary, you are not the only one who struggles with our separation. You must think me a hypocrite for saying so, while all the while being the one who insists on this distance, but I hate it as much as you do. Please believe me when I tell you that I would not demand this distance if it were not completely necessary. 

Please write back so that I know you understand.

Anna

—

My lovely Anna,

I cannot stay angry at you. And you mustn’t be angry with me, for I only long to be close to you. It would be so much better for both of us, wouldn’t it? Why must we go on like this? I do not give a damn about the rules of “society”, for as far as I can tell, they have no rhyme or reason.

Did Maxi’s father manage to make it through Easter Weekend without passing out drunk? I was very shocked to see him still conscious by the end of dinner. What a pathetic man. 

I am still unhappy. But the one thought that keeps me from doing something else you’d call “improper” is that we are so close to the end of classes. Over the summer, when there is no school, we can have our special lessons every day, and there will be plenty of time for us to spend together, alone. I am counting down the days… 

Oksana

P.S. Don’t think I have forgotten that your birthday is also the day after classes end. I shall have something very special planned.

—

Oksana,

I am glad that you’re excited for summer. I look forward to it as well. I would be happy to continue our weekly lessons if you’d like, but I want to make it clear that I will not be able to increase the frequency of our meetings. I will still have to teach a few hours each day for the summer session at the lower school, and aside from that, I must spend most of my free time with Maxi. We like to go to museums and see plays and ballet as much as we can over the summer, when we have free time that we aren’t both working.

It’s sweet of you to remember my birthday, but I must ask you not to do anything drastic, not least of all because right now you should prioritize your studies above all else. You must prepare well for your exams, or you may not be promoted to twelfth grade. 

Anna

—

My graceful Anna,

Are exams all you ever think about? I suppose that is why you became a teacher. You could not get enough of school as a student, and now you love it so dearly that you aren’t satisfied by giving assignments and exams, you also spend all day thinking about mine. I love how strange you are.

I find it very demoralizing that you don’t care about me enough to teach me more over the summer. Are the tiny children at the lower school more important than me? Are boring paintings on a wall more important than me? You can see how this makes me feel worthless. I am distraught… I may not be able to put this aside and study at all…

Oksana

—

Oksana,

At the risk of repeating myself, I shall once again explain to you why your exams are important. Aside from the value of an education in molding you into a well-rounded young woman, a high school diploma is all but a necessity to make anything of yourself in this world. It seems to me that you are hesitant to imagine the mark you could make on this world if you tried. Do you believe, deep down, that because of your past mistakes, you are already a failure? I sincerely hope not, because that is utter nonsense. You are so bright and so capable. You could succeed in any number of fields if you set your mind to it, but graduating high school comes before any of that. 

Have you given any thought to what you would like to do in life once you finish school? Perhaps having something at stake, a dream to hold in mind, will help incentivize you to work harder on your exams. I can tell from your last letter that being a teacher is certainly not your preferred career path, but I would love to know what is.

Anna

P.S. I know you are trying to guilt me into promising extra lessons over the summer, but it will not work. It isn’t because I do not value you; there are simply other things I must do. 

—

My shining Anna,

At the moment, I cannot think of anything that far away. I think I will not live to see the end of high school. Each moment that goes by without seeing you is agony. Without the promise of more of you, I wither and starve. There is no other future for me other than that with you. If I cannot be with you, I may as well be back in that boring, ugly reformatory.

And that is why, though it pains me so, I still make an effort. I do not understand why my grades are so important to you, but I push through, for you. I only wish you’d do something to show me if you care about me.

Oksana

—

Oksana,

You needn’t be so dramatic, but I want to make it clear how much I appreciate you putting in an effort. It will pay off someday, I promise, and if I am wrong, then I invite you to return to me after you graduate and show your displeasure however you see fit. 

I have some news that you will like. Maxi, clever man that he is, has earned himself a position leading a very prestigious project at work which requires him to stay in St. Petersburg for most of the summer. Naturally, I find this bittersweet, as it means I will see much less of him. However, it does mean that when I am not teaching, and I am not traveling to meet him on the weekends, I will have a considerable amount of time on my hands. I would like nothing more than to teach you additional lessons, provided you are still interested. I imagine we will be able to make astounding progress over the summer, especially without any other schoolwork for you to worry about. What do you think? 

Anna

—

My beloved Anna,

You are a wicked woman, aren’t you? You nearly had me convinced that you did not care about me at all. I was very close to doing something drastic. It’s lucky you gave in when you did!

I shall keep this letter brief, because although there is so much I wish to tell you, I want to wait until we are together. I will finally be able to say all I want to say, and do all the things I want to do. With you. So very soon.

Your one and only,  
Oksana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oksana Astankova is, and always has been, a dramatic hoe! Did you think she only became a sap over Eve? No way.
> 
> Please comment what you think! Writing this chapter was a big throwback for me to when I used to read epistolary novels as a kid. How did you like this format?
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr!](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/)


	6. Bad Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxi departs for a work trip, leaving Anna and Oksana to spend their summer days together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Kara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpowell123/) for encouraging me to lean in on the cringe of the title when I asked for her advice. She is only on episode 3 of Killing Eve and has no idea what this fic is about, so she is blissfully unaware of how wrong and right it is.

“I am the worst husband in the world. It’s alright; you can say it.”

Maxi is being a fool again, pushing around the last few bites of his food at the fancy restaurant he’d taken Anna to for an early birthday celebration.

“You are not.”

“It’s bad enough I have to spend so much time away on your summer break, but to miss your birthday, too? You ought to leave me for a better man.”

“It’s better this way, really. I get to have a wonderful dinner with you, a day earlier than expected. How lucky I am,” Anna says playfully.

“You are a saint.”

“And you are a very skilled contract lawyer,” Anna says. “I am so glad your bosses have finally taken notice.”

Suddenly, Maxi gets a very serious look on his face. “ _Anyuta._ I don’t have to go.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t. My job is not as important as you. In fact, it’s extremely dry most of the time. Just say the word and I’ll phone them and tell them I can’t go. I’ll spend the summer with you.”

Anna reaches across the table to take his hand. “I want you to go. I want you to enjoy it and not feel guilty about leaving me. I’ll be alright here. And besides, I’ll visit you on the weekends.”

“It’s your birthday, and yet you’re the one giving me a gift.”

“Don’t be so sappy.”

“I suppose it’s time I gave you what I brought…” Maxi reaches underneath his chair and places a small package, wrapped in silver paper onto the table. “It’s small, but consider it a token. I’ll find you more beautiful things in St. Petersburg.”

Anna rolls her eyes at Maxi’s desperation and unwraps the gift. Underneath the shiny paper she finds a set of beautiful stationery, on thick cream-colored paper, embossed with her initials.

“I noticed you’d finally used up that stationery set my cousin Boris got us for our wedding, so I figured you could use some more. Since you seem to write much more than I ever do.”

“Maxi, these are beautiful,” Anna says, running her fingers over the smooth texture of the heavy paper.

“Maybe you can write me over the summer.”

Anna looks him in the eyes. “I will. Every day.”

Maxi laughs. “That might be a bit much, but every week or two might be nice.” He leans across the table to give her a kiss. “I don’t know how I am going to get on without you.”

“It’s only a summer.”

  
Maxi leaves for St. Petersburg in the morning, and their apartment feels very large and very empty without him. Logically, Anna knows it shouldn’t feel any different than any other time she’s been apart from Maxi, but there’s a different quality to her alone-ness now. 

As she sips her morning tea, the hair on the back of her neck stands up, and somehow, she knows Oksana is outside the door before she hears the knock. She swings open the door and sees Oksana standing there with a huge grin on her face, holding a large flat box.

“Happy birthday!” Oksana immediately drops the box on the floor and throws her arms around Anna. Anna is crushed, she can’t breathe, wrapped up tightly in Oksana’s grip.

“Please…” Anna gasps. Oksana finally relents and Anna draws in a big breath.

“I missed you,” Oksana says, earnestly.

“I can tell.”

Oksana bends to pick up the box from the floor. “Are you ready for your gift?”

Anna sighs. “I thought I told you not to get me anything.”

“You didn’t.”

“I think I did.”

“You asked me not to do anything ‘drastic’. I hardly think giving you a gift on your birthday qualifies as drastic. Open it.” Oksana holds the box out to Anna, ready to burst with glee.

Anna carefully takes the box and brings it to the kitchen table, then removes the lid. Inside she finds a fine satin forest green dress. She lifts it up and feels the smooth texture between her fingers. She can tell simply by the luxurious feel of it that it must have cost more than her entire wardrobe put together.

“Oksana… It’s…”

“Try it on.”

“I…” Anna searches for a good excuse not to, but words escape her.

“Please. I worked so hard to find the perfect dress. I need to see it on you.”

Partly due to weakness and partly because she does, in spite of herself, want to try it on, Anna goes to her bedroom to change into the dress. As she zips it up, it fits her impeccably, not an inch too large or too small, which she finds a bit eerie. She’s never had such luck trying a dress off the rack while shopping, but this one might as well have been tailored to her. Lacking a full length mirror, she emerges from the bedroom again.

Oksana’s eyes widen as she spies Anna.

“Is it bad?” Anna twists and turns and examines her body self-consciously.

“You are breathtaking,” Oksana whispers. 

Anna moves over the mirror she has mounted by the door, and takes a look at herself. The rich green complements her skin perfectly, and the impeccable fit of the dress makes her body look more like a famous actress or supermodel than she’d ever have thought possible. She does not consider herself to be a vain person, but this dress makes her believe she could be called beautiful. Or even stunning.

As Anna stares at her reflection, Oksana appears beside her. Staring into the mirror as well, she raises one hand to remove the clip from Anna’s hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. “Exquisite,” Oksana says. “I have incredible taste.”

“You do.” Anna averts her gaze from the mirror, and reaches back for the zipper of the dress. “Now, let me give it back to you.”

“Give it back?” Oksana scoffs.

“I can’t keep this.”

“Why not?”

“Aside from the fact that I have no idea how you could afford something like this, I can’t ever wear it,” Anna says, struggling to reach the zipper.

“You have to. You look amazing.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t have anything like this and I never have. If anyone ever saw me in this dress, there would be questions. Questions I can’t answer.”

Oksana reaches out to help Anna with the zipper, but Anna swats her hand away, and stomps off to her bedroom. 

Once she manages to extricate herself from the dress and pack it back in its box, she hands it back to Oksana. “I appreciate the thought. Truly, I do.”

“Then why won’t you keep it?” Oksana pouts. “Even if you don’t wear it often. Keep it in case you change your mind.”

“You know, you’ve already given me the greatest birthday gift of all,” Anna says, unable to keep from smiling a bit. “I checked with the registrar, and you passed your exams. You will go on to twelfth grade in the fall.”

“So?”

Anna laughs. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t care much, but it made me quite happy to hear that. I’m very proud of you. I know the past few months have been hard for you.”

Oksana’s eyes are steely with resolve. “Not hard. Impossible.”

“But here you are,” Anna says. “Evidently you are capable of more than you thought.”

“But not capable of getting you to wear this dress, apparently.” 

Oksana sits across from Anna at the table, and notices the box of stationery. Before Anna can stop her, she’s opened it and is rifling through the papers. “What’s this?”

“Maxi got it for me.” Anna takes the paper back from Oksana’s hands. “He noticed I was using a lot of stationery.”

“Does he know what you use it for?” Oksana giggles, apparently having gotten over the rejection of her gift.

“You will drive me mad,” Anna breathes. “Are you going to be like this all summer?”

“I’ll be good for you,” Oksana takes the dress back. “See. I’ll do as you ask. Let’s begin with the English lesson.”

  
The first week of summer flies by faster than Anna can blink. Mornings drilling French pronouns at the lower school; afternoons reading German philosophy or Shakespeare’s plays with Oksana. She spends all day wrapped up in languages, but the two styles of teaching couldn’t be more different.

Each time she thinks she can rest and take a breath, there is Oksana, mastering another language; there is Oksana, dragging her out to the park; there is Oksana, making Anna forget why she was ever so resistant to being alone with her.

Something in Anna still says “no”, although every logical barrier is gone – she has plenty of time outside of school and nothing better to do, Maxi is otherwise occupied, and who knows what trouble Oksana would get herself into if left to her own devices for a full summer – so why shouldn’t she enjoy herself? Why shouldn’t she indulge and give the girl the silly little outings that she asks for?

 _Because she is your student,_ the voice inside Anna says. 

This is what she imagines a lion tamer must feel like: offering the lion enough scraps of juicy meat to satisfy its appetite, and keep it from pouncing… drawing it close, but not too close… knowing it could eat her up in a minute if it got bored.

Oksana couldn’t be happier with the arrangement, and continues to find creative ways to expand the territory of their lessons. One afternoon, Oksana meets her at a park about halfway between the school and Anna’s home, and they waste the afternoon chatting about this and that, switching languages every few minutes just for fun. 

After the topic drifts to music, Oksana begins pestering Anna to listen to something on her iPod.

“What better way to learn English than by listening to their music?” Oksana says, offering Anna one of the earphones attached to her iPod. “Plus, it’s got some French in it, too.”

“I’ve never liked American music.”

“It’s catchy,” Oksana says defensively.

“It’s obscene.”

“It’s culture.”

“It’s noise.”

“At least listen to the whole thing before you make up your mind.”

Anna rolls her eyes and puts the earphone in her ear as Oksana clicks play, immediately blasting Anna’s eardrum with a heavy dance beat. Oksana notices Anna’s pain and mercifully lowers the volume to a more reasonable level.

Beyond the dance beat, Anna listens to “Lady Gaga” (that can’t be her real name, can it?) growl about craving a “bad romance”. She remains skeptical as the vast majority of the lyrics turn out to be nonsense syllables or drawn out “oh”s… and what on earth is a “vertigo stick”? Is that American slang she isn’t familiar with? At least when the French comes up, it’s better than Anna had expected, coming from an American. _“Je veux ton amour, et je veux ta revanche”_. Always make sure to repeat the hook in a second language, in case anyone missed it the first time, Anna thinks.

Once the song ends, Oksana looks at her expectantly. “So?”

“American pop music is… not my cup of tea.”

“I like it.”

“Americans always want things to be ‘bad’. So edgy. Why can’t a pop song be about a good romance?”

“That’s not as fun to dance to.”

As they lazily meander from the park back to Anna’s apartment, Anna hears Oksana humming the melody under her breath. To Anna’s surprise, later that night long after Oksana has left, she still hears the melody going through her head. It was catchy after all.

  
A week has passed since Anna’s birthday; a week since she’d gotten comfortable with her new routine with Oksana far too quickly. Anna is just about to kick the girl out, since it’s almost nine – she’d lost track of time while Oksana was mockingly summarizing the plot of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ in her own interpretation, which involved a lot more violence.

Oksana seems to sense that Anna is about to ask her to leave, and gets up to grab her coat from the rack. Instead of putting it on, she reaches into the pocket.

Oksana pulls out a small box, only a few inches wide, and places it on the table in front of Anna. “Happy birthday, again. Sorry it’s a week late.”

Anna sighs. “We talked about this… I can’t accept expensive things from you.”

“Don’t worry. I thought about what you said, and I think you are right. I wanted you to have something beautiful, something from me, that would be close to you, on you all the time. But it’s much better if no one can see it.”

Anna carefully opens the small box and pulls away a layer of tissue paper to find a cut-glass bottle of perfume. As she picks it up, it sparkes in the light, revealing a name on the side: “La Villanelle”. 

“What are you waiting for? Put it on.”

Anna has never worn perfume in her life, so she imitates what she’s seen in old movies and squirts a couple of sprays on her neck. Immediately the scent wafts up to her nose: it’s rather light, but distinctive. Floral, but with an edge of some other kind of plant underneath. A hint of honey.

“You can wear this every single day, and no one will know. Except me.” Oksana leans close to Anna and inhales deeply. “Delicious.”

Oksana is so close that even over the scent of La Villanelle, Anna can smell something else. Is Oksana wearing a different perfume, or is it just _her?_ Anna is too overwhelmed to be sure.

“Thank you,” Anna whispers, every muscle in her body tense, wishing Oksana would move away, and yet for some reason, not exercising her own ability to move.

A few agonizingly long seconds pass, and Oksana looks into Anna’s eyes. Anna looks back, transfixed, hardly able to blink.

Oksana leans forward to close the few inches between their lips. Anna suddenly recovers her ability to move and jerks her head away.

“What are you doing?” Anna says, her face growing warm and flushed.

“That’s a stupid question,” Oksana says. “I think it’s pretty clear.”

“But why– You can’t–”

Oksana interrupts Anna’s half-formed protests. “Give me one reason – one good reason – to stop, and I will.”

“I’m a woman,” Anna half-laughs.

Oksana smirks quizzically at Anna. “And?”

“I’m your _teacher_.”

“Not tonight.”

Anna finds herself paralyzed, unable to utter the next logical statement in the series, the one that would be her strongest defense, because if she did, it would also betray her by acknowledging the significance of what was about to occur. 

She does not say, _“I’m married.”_ She does not say a single word. She does not scream or run. She does not push Oksana away.

It turns out that Oksana was right: that night, Anna is indeed, not the teacher. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Anna’s box of letters and keepsakes from Oksana on the show, there was an empty perfume bottle. So I wondered what it meant, why she kept it. No, it did not look the same as the La Villanelle bottle that Eve received, but that’s because they could’ve changed the bottle design in the five years that passed! That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
> 
> Also, I have no other justification for the music scene other than I wanted to remind us all that this takes place in 2010. Villanelle is a millennial! Never forget!
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Can't believe that 2010 was a decade ago? Comment, or talk to me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/)!


	7. Anatomy of an Affair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After her relationship with Oksana escalates to the physical level, Anna realizes the gravity of what she's done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a little longer than usual! I got an idea for another multi-chapter KE fic and got distracted outlining that one. First chapter of that will probably drop soon so keep an eye out ;)

An affair is something a deviant housewife begins with the handsome milkman, stealing kisses while her husband is buried in his newspaper. 

An affair happens on a whim, in a fit of passion, when two people meet and instantly lose all control.

An affair happens in the dead of night, in hotel rooms or boarding houses. It begins at a bar and ends on a train.

An affair happens when a marriage is already miserable, neglected beyond repair.

Anna composes this checklist on the train to St. Petersburg to keep from feeling sick. If she were having an affair, she wouldn’t dare be able to show her face in front of Maxi, but her life the past few weeks does not seem to meet the necessary criteria.

Truthfully, the change after that night with Oksana was not as dramatic as Anna expected. By and large, her days with Oksana are the same as before: casual conversations masquerading as language lessons. But occasionally, at the end of a day, Oksana will get that look in her eye like a lion on the hunt, and they will do… that other thing.

Each time it happens, Anna half-expects the world to come crashing down around her: a fiery portal should open up in the floor and swallow her straight to hell, or an earthquake should bring the house down, or at the very least Maxi should show up to surprise her at home and, horrified by what he walks in on, throw her out of the house in a fit of rage.

But nothing ever happens. There are no consequences, it seems, to Anna’s actions.

So, Anna deduces, it can’t be real, can it? Those nights with Oksana… they must be merely dreams sent by the Devil, or by God Himself, she isn’t sure. 

Yes, they _must_ be dreams, for nothing in reality could be a soft as Oksana’s skin; nothing could be as sweet as her lips, and her hands – oh, those fingers! They are too slender, they can’t really be that strong – and the avalanche they trigger in Anna, that was more powerful than any real touch could possibly be. Of all the words in the seven languages Anna speaks, none are adequate to describe the serene ecstasy of whatever it is Oksana does to her.

“Anna? What do you want to order?”

Anna is jolted out of her daydreaming to look up at the waiter who is standing impatiently, listening for Anna’s lunch order. She doesn’t even remember getting off the train.

She blinks and looks down at the menu, stuttering, and Maxi gently asks the waiter to come back in a few minutes.

“Sorry. I’m tired from travelling.”

“Should we cancel our theater tickets?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” Anna makes a conscious effort to read the menu, and picks a dish at random. “How is work?” she asks; if she gets Maxi talking it will take the pressure off her.

“Busy. I miss you every day.”

“I miss you, too.”

“Something seems different about you, but I can’t put my finger on it…” Maxi cocks his head and stares at Anna.

Anna’s pulse quickens, but she does her best not to let her nervousness show. Now that things have changed between her and Oksana, she is sure he will be able to sense it… to _smell_ it on her. She took two showers that morning to make sure there was no lingering scent of La Villanelle, but could Maxi still detect it? Not only the perfume itself, but the indelible mark of sin; that no amount of soap would take off.

“Have you been spending much time in the sun?” Maxi says finally. “You’re glowing. You are more beautiful than ever before.”

Anna lets out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. “It’s summer, after all.”

An affair would mean Maxi’s teeth would grind and hair would bristle with primal jealousy; he’d sense something wrong, sense the presence of another’s hands on his wife.

The results are clear: Anna must not be having an affair.

And so, her dangerous double life remains in peaceful equilibrium, for the time being. Her transient nights with Oksana remain safely contained within her apartment in Moscow, and she gets all the credit for being a good wife when she visits Maxi, which she does as often as she can.

However, summer cannot last forever, and the bubble must burst eventually. The prick comes when Anna receives the first draft of her fall class rosters in the mail. None of this should be a surprise to her, but she dislikes the reminder that school looms in only a week to end her dreamlike summer state.

As she opens the roster, she gets a second nasty reminder. There, on the roster for Intermediate Spanish, of course: Oksana Astankova. Seeing her name on the list, among the other students, shatters Anna’s carefully constructed dam of denial and brings all of her self-hatred rushing forward to drown her.

In one week, Oksana will be her student once again. No, she never actually stopped being Anna’s student. Everything that has transpired this summer is wrong, and Anna can’t ignore it any longer.

She struggles to breathe. This must be what a panic attack feels like. She is overwhelmed, trapped, and knows she must do something, or else she will suffocate.

She must escape.

That’s it, that’s the only answer, and once she’s made up her mind she’s able to breathe again. She doesn’t know where she’ll go or what she’ll do, but she has to leave, doesn’t she? She has made an irrevocable mistake. For the moment, she directs all of her adrenaline to helping her grab her large suitcase and throw all her clothes into it haphazardly, prioritizing speed over efficiency.

She’ll pick her destination once she reaches the airport. Paris, perhaps? She could get a job teaching Russian – no, she shouldn’t have any connection to her previous life at all – teach English instead. Change her name to Smith. Live a completely new life so no one will ever discover her indiscretions.

She grabs her personalized stationery as well, to write a letter to Maxi once she arrives, explaining why he’ll come home to an empty house. Hesitating before she packs it, she wonders: should she leave a note for Oksana? No, it’s better if she says no goodbyes. She throws the stationery in her bag and opens the door to leave, when she hears a knock at the door.

She stands incredibly still, rooted to the spot, afraid to even breathe. It’s so early; she had hoped she’d make it out before Oksana came. Maybe, if she makes no sound, Oksana will go.

Another knock, louder this time. Anna heart beats so heavily it feels like it may explode out of her chest.

Then, muffled through the door, she hears Oksana’s voice: “I know you are awake. I saw you through the window from outside.”

Anna briefly considers ignoring the accusation and waiting until Oksana got bored and left, but based on everything she knows about Oksana, it’s more likely that she’d kick the door in than leave unsatisfied.

With her feet dragging like lead, Anna goes to unlock the door. Oksana enters impatiently, holding a bag from the bakery down the street in her other hand.

“I brought croissants. Were you on the toilet or something?” she asks as she strides into the apartment.

“We can’t have a lesson today. I meant to tell you.”

Oksana, in her classic nosy nature, peers through Anna’s bedroom door and notices her half-packed suitcase. “Where are you going?”

“To meet Maxi and bring him home. I have to leave very soon, so please go, and let me pack,” Anna says with frustration – as if they’d been sticking to a regular lesson schedule at all over the past month.

“You’re bringing that big suitcase for a day trip?” Oksana raises one eyebrow – suspicious, but not yet confrontational.

“I want to be prepared.” Anna fears that if she lets this conversation go on for very long, she will lose her nerve to leave.

Anna tries to lead Oksana to the door, but she shrugs off Anna’s touch, demanding, “Tell me where you are really going.”

“Oksana, I don’t have time for this! I have to leave!”

“Leave, where?”

“Far away. Far from you.” Anna finds the words spilling out against her will. She has never had an easy time keeping things from Oksana. “Please don’t make it harder,” she begs.

Oksana grabs Anna by the wrist, and Anna cries out. Oksana’s grip is like a vise, and her nails, though they are short, dig into Anna’s skin.

“You can’t leave,” Oksana says, her voice like steel. “You’re _mine_.”

Oksana’s eyes are full of a fire and fury that Anna can’t comprehend, or rather, doesn’t want to comprehend. She doesn’t want to recognize it as the look of someone capable of horrible things. In an instant, all of the details she’s heard about Oksana’s past – heard and made every effort to forget – come flashing through her mind’s eye. Arson. Manslaughter. Stabbed a schoolmate. Broke Egor’s hand… And was Anna about to become yet another incident on the list? The next line on Oksana’s permanent record?

It must be a fight-or-flight response that takes over, some primal instinct for self-preservation, that makes Anna kiss Oksana, kiss her furiously and passionately, as if her life depends on it – which, maybe it does?

Oksana’s eyes widen at first, surprised at Anna’s ferocity, and because, thus far, she had always been the one leading the way in intimacy, with Anna slowly lowering her walls. However, it isn’t long before Oksana melts happily into it, her grip on Anna transforming from coercive to caressing.

Slowly, as if it takes all of her strength to pull her lips away from Anna’s, Oksana catches her breath and asks, “Do you really want to leave me?”

“I have to.”

“Why?” Oksana gently grabs one of Anna’s stray curls and places it behind her ear. “I’m not being cheeky. I don’t understand.”

Anna doesn’t know where to start. “Everything about this is wrong.”

“Says who?” Oksana sounds agitated. “I don’t think it is. Do _you?_ ”

“I do!”

“ _You’re_ wrong,” Oksana says plainly. _Now_ she’s being cheeky.

“Do you understand what will happen if anyone ever finds out about what we’ve done?” Anna’s voice begins to break. “I will be fired, but that’s hardly the worst of it. They’ll take you away, Oksana. For good. I can’t let that happen. I have to leave.”

“They won’t find out.”

“Exactly. Because it’s over.” Tears well up and finally overflow, streaming onto Anna’s cheeks. “I must go. But you need to stay in school, Oksana, do you hear me? You need to graduate. Have a normal life. Promise me you will.”

“I promise,” Oksana takes Anna’s face in both of her hands and speaks slowly, as if explaining something to a child, “that I will keep you safe. You are going to stay and everything is going to be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Anna blinks away tears and looks at Oksana, whose eyes are bright with determination. It makes no sense – Oksana shouldn’t be the one taking control here – Anna should be the one with a plan, the one protecting them both by leaving – but one of them is a weeping mess right now, and it isn’t Oksana.

Oksana holds Anna tightly as she cries, and speaks softly. “You can’t leave. I need you. You are everything to me.” Then she switches to French to deliver the final blow: “I am a good person when I am with you.”

Anna looks over at the door to her apartment, still a few inches ajar. She pries herself from Oksana’s grip. 

The right thing to do is to leave, but the right time to do it was months ago.

She closes the door.

Running away is not an option. Was the right thing to do to come clean now, and let Popov make the decision for her? She recalls what Popov said about telling him if Oksana behaved ‘inappropriately’ towards her.

If Anna confesses now, they’d take Oksana away. _That would still be better,_ says the prudent part of her. Better for her to be sent back to the reformatory, and far from Anna.

But would it, really? Anna knows, as vain as she feels to think it, that if Oksana were to be torn away from her, the girl was certain to react poorly. She might return to her violent outbursts. She might get herself sent to jail instead – surely that wasn’t a better alternative. The only way to be certain Oksana wouldn’t stray down an even darker path was to keep her close.

And the only way to keep Oksana close is to keep her _extremely_ close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting so dark, I know! :( I knew this would happen when I started writing this, but somehow, even knowing the ending, I still wish it could turn out better!
> 
> As always, please don't be afraid to let me know what you think! I love hearing from you all. <3


	8. What Would God Say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As school resumes, Anna is nervous that someone will discover her affair with Oksana.

Anna hasn’t been this nervous for the first day of school since… No, she’s never been this nervous. She always used to get excited the night before school started up again, like a child on Christmas Eve, excited to see what new topics she’d get to learn when she was a student, or now that she was a teacher, excited to see what the students would bring to her this year. But now, she tosses and turns endlessly, unable to fall asleep.

Maxi, bless him, who’s been twice as affectionate since being back home (as if he had anything to make up for), asks if he can get her anything.

“I’m fine,” Anna lies. “I had a coffee in the afternoon. I should have known better.”

Should have known better, indeed.

Anna is both surprised and relieved when the first day of school passes without event. Strangely enough, ever since her relationship with Oksana had… “evolved”, people only whisper and gossip less than before. Or was Anna only more hyperaware of it before, paranoid that other people were speculating about what she was not sure of herself?

It was somehow more nerve-wracking to think of being accused of something she hadn’t yet done, than to worry about getting caught now that she had crossed the line. (Crossed – or had Oksana dragged her across?)

But no one whispers anymore. Perhaps they’ve finally accepted the situation at face value: Oksana is really good at languages, and Anna is the one teacher who gets through to her. That checks out; no further questions.

Or maybe no one else cares. Maybe everyone else is so embroiled in their personal foibles, so engrossed in their own personal shame, that they have no attention left to devote to scrutinizing Anna. At least, she supposes this could be the case, for she certainly has no energy left these days to worry about judging anyone else.

By the end of the third afternoon of school, Anna allows herself to believe that she’s mastered the balancing act and the con may be successful after all. No scarlet “A” has appeared on her chest, no other teacher has accused her, and it seems, it’s far easier to get away with the wrong thing than Anna had ever anticipated. She feels almost giddy with relief, until she finds a memo in her mailbox at lunchtime asking her to please report to Headmaster Popov’s office at the end of the day.

As she reads the memo, she grows lightheaded, and thinks she may be overcome with nausea. She thinks she hears Olga’s voice asking her if she’s alright, if she’d like something to drink, but it sounds like she’s underwater.

Somehow, by sheer muscle memory, she manages to teach her classes for the rest of the day without incident, but as she walks to the Headmaster’s office after the bell rings, she can’t help but fee like she is marching to the gallows.

Anna cracks the Headmaster’s door open hesitantly to find him seated behind his desk. He beckons her in eagerly, and as Anna opens the door fully, she sees Oksana seated in a stool pulled up to the desk.

“Hello, Madam Leonova,” Oksana greets her cheerily. Anna almost wants to slap the girl; can’t she have the decency to treat this moment with the gravity it deserves?

“Thank you for coming,” Popov says. “Please, sit.” He gestures for Anna to sit in the large leather chair, the one that she always fears will swallow her up completely. If only it had; if only she’d been swallowed up out of existence that day almost a year ago, when she’d come here to beg for the Headmaster’s permission to teach Oksana privately – then all of this could have been avoided.

“I am glad I can deliver this news to both of you at once,” the Headmaster begins. “You may recall, Madam Leonova, it was nearly a year ago in this very office that you came to me to discuss the potential of Ms. Astankova.”

 _Yes, I know,_ Anna thinks. _Don’t draw this out. Please, put me out of my misery._ But she simply nods.

“I was skeptical then, as it seemed a very suspicious request,” the Headmaster says. _Here it comes,_ Anna thinks.

“But I could not be happier to admit how wrong I was,” the Headmaster finally cracks a smile, and cannot hold back. “Ms. Astankova, you have been chosen by the school board to receive a special Certificate of Excellence for your achievements with French last year.”

Oksana laughs aloud, while Anna places a hand over her heart, willing it to start beating again.

“Did you hear that, Madam Leonova?” Oksana pokes Anna’s arm excitedly. “The school board thinks I am excellent.”

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Anna manages, though her throat has gone dry from fear. “For giving us a chance.”

“Thank _you,_ Madam Leonova, for your brilliant teaching. And you, Ms. Astankova – well, you’ve surprised us all!” Anna has never seen the Headmaster in such good spirits before. Usually he finds something or other to be very concerned about, but now he looks like a man who has won the lottery.

“The ceremony is tonight at seven o’clock, here in the auditorium. I hope you will be able to attend?” The Headmaster looks expectantly at the two of them.

“Hmm… I may have other plans,” Oksana says.

“Nonsense,” Anna declares. “Of course she will be there. And I will as well.”

After the Headmaster dismisses them with another round of congratulations, and they escape safely into the hallway, Oksana bursts out laughing. “I thought you were about to have a heart attack!”

“I nearly did,” Anna murmurs. “I’m still not sure that my heart has restarted.”

Oksana reaches out a hand a places two fingers on Anna’s neck, to check her pulse. “No, it’s going strong. Very fast, actually.” 

Anna bats her hand away, and chastises her in French, “Not here. You know better.”

“I’m only following your lead,” Oksana says, innocently. “I tried to get out of that event. You’re always saying we shouldn’t be seen together. But there you are, saying we’ll both go.”

“That’s different and you know it. It would look stranger if we didn’t go,” Anna says.

“You’re very good at that,” Oksana says, coyly, as they start walking towards the large double doors that lead out the front steps of the school.

“What?”

“Justifying things. Whatever you want, you come up with a reason for it that sounds very convincing.”

“I am not!” Anna protests. “I like to know why I do what I do.”

“Calm down, it wasn’t a criticism,” Oksana says. “I like it. Because it means we can do more things. New things.”

Anna can’t get that remark out of her head as she walks all the way home.

When Anna tells Maxi about the ceremony, of course he wants to come.

“I’m proud of you,” he says. “All that work you’ve done with her; all that time you spent, you’re finally getting some recognition.”

“You know that’s not why I do it,” Anna sighs.

“It’s still nice,” Maxi says. “I feel like I have hardly seen you since I’ve been home. We still have to make up for the summer. All those nights we missed…”

“I know,” Anna says, her heart beginning to feel like it’s weighed down with lead. “I want to make it up to you, a thousand times over, but tonight is not the time. It’s already unusal that I’m going; the awards are only for the students, and Popov only invited me because he knows I put in a little extra effort with Oksana. But spouses just don’t come to these events.”

“Fine,” Maxi relents. “But tomorrow, I am taking you out. No excuses!”

“I can live with that,” Anna says, giving Maxi a kiss before she goes.

Already, it was getting easier to lie to him. Already, it was growing comfortable. Anna should hate herself for it, but she cannot muster the energy.

  
The school auditorium takes on an air of undeserved self-importance, like the red carpet at a fancy awards show, as the school board representative introduces the evening of academic awards in a very self-congratulatory speech. You would think, by the way she spoke, that she believed she and her fellow administrators did all the work of education, rather than the actual teachers.

Anna has never had a liking for administration.

Oksana notices her irritation, and leans over to whisper in Anna’s ear, “Don’t frown so much, or you’ll get wrinkles.” Anna shushes her. Oksana shuts her mouth, but sneaks her hand over to Anna’s knee, and slowly intertwines her fingers into those of Anna’s left hand. Anna knows she needs to admonish her, but she worries that if she throws Oksana’s hand off, it will attract more attention to them. Besides, everyone else seems quite focused on the speaker.

After the speech is done, and applauded passionately by the other board members in the audience, Popov steps up to award the Certificates of Excellence for each subject.

They watch as Yelena Simonova receives the award for Excellence in History, and gets a picture taken holding up her certificate proudly. Then Egor Smirnov is called up to receive the award for Excellence in Mathematics, and Oksana squeezes Anna’s hand sharply. _Remember when I broke his hand?_ says the squeeze. 

_Yes,_ Anna responds with a feathery touch of her index finger. _Don’t break mine._

Anna uses the group applause for Egor as an excuse to pull her hand free as she claps. Oksana rolls her eyes at Anna, but mercifully, before she can do anything else to drive Anna mad, her name is called and she has to step up to the podium to accept her honor for Excellence in French.

Anna notices that Popov puffs up even more than usual as he hands Oksana the certificate, and directs the cameraman to take an additional picture of him with Oksana. Of course, he has to take a share of the credit for himself. Anna also notices how he plays it out to the school board, who applaud noticeably louder than the did for poor Yelena or Egor – they, of course, know Oksana’s history. They would’ve all had to sign off on her admission to the school.

Then, suddenly, Anna hears her name, and realizes Popov has called her up. “Anna, come on, this is your award too. Come up and have a picture.” Anna feels more embarrassed than ever; the Headmaster must really be proud if he’s comfortable enough to call her by her first name in front of the whole board. She can’t decline in this situation, so she walks up and poses next to Oksana, who is grinning madly with her certificate in hand. She must find all of this hilarious.

The camera flashes, and Anna lets the artificial smile fall from her face (she’d never been good at posing for photos). “That was a really good one,” the cameraman says. “I’ll make sure you get a copy.” Anna thanks him without thinking and returns to her seat with Oksana in tow.

“If I knew it was this easy to make a room full of people lose their minds over me,” Oksana whispers to Anna, in French, “I’d have started trying in school a long time ago.”

“I told you it’d be rewarding,” Anna whispers back.

“I think we should celebrate my excellent work.”

“I’ll buy you an ice cream after this,” Anna says. 

“Mmmm… I had something else in mind.”

“No,” Anna says, glancing around them. “You know Maxi is at home.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we go to your apartment,” Oksana says, then abruptly stands.

“There’s more awards,” Anna says, before realizing the futility of expecting Oksana to sit through the rest of the ceremony simply it was the polite thing to do.

“Are you coming or not?” Oksana asks, already walking away.

Anna glances apologetically around at the other students yet to receive their awards, then runs after Oksana.

Their footsteps steps echo throughout the hallways, which seem cavernous and endless with most of the lights turned off and no crowds of students and teacher to fill them. Oksana moves almost at a run, as if daring Anna to try to keep up. Alone with her, Anna feels very exposed, but there’s not a soul to witness them; the emptiness provides them with freedom to do what they like.

After a short jog that’s enough to get Anna’s heart rate up (as if Oksana couldn’t do that on her own), Anna realizes that Oksana has led her to the school library. Oksana bursts through the door with a loud cheer, and Anna follows, shushing her instinctively.

“No one’s here,” Oksana says. “I can be as loud as I want!” Of course, she shouts the last bit to prove her point.

“It still feels wrong,” Anna says quietly. “To shout in a library.”

Oksana turns to Anna and grabs her hand, leading her into the stacks. It’s so dark, with the only light filtering in through the windows, that the library seems like a forest, the shelves looming like foliage. “I thought this would be best,” Oksana says, “Don’t all these books turn you on?”

“Don’t turn the fact that I enjoy reading into something lewd, I beg you,” Anna says.

“School is out, Madam Leonova,” Oksana says. “It’s time to celebrate.”

As Oksana bends her lips to nuzzle at Anna’s neck, both of them jump at the sound of a sudden and enormous roar. In the darkness of the library, Anna thinks it sounds like a demon’s howl, before her common sense identifies it as the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

Heart pounding, Anna peers around the corner of the shelf to see a custodian working away at the carpet, moving the vacuum back and forth under each chair methodically as she makes her way across the library.

“Shit,” Anna gasps, and Oksana, intrigued by Anna’s uncharacteristic expletive, presses up next to her to get a look.

“This is very bad,” Anna says to Oksana, over the roar of the vacuum, so paralyzed by fear that she can’t do anything other than state the obvious. “She must have heard us – you said my name! – Oh, it’s all over…”

“Hey,” Oksana says. Anna continues repeating “it’s over, it’s over”, unable to stop herself, until Oksana slaps her across the face and she cries out.

“Stop. Take a breath. It’s going to be okay,” Oksana says, staring into Anna’s eyes with such confidence that Anna almost believes her. “I’m going to take care of it, alright?” 

Oksana squeezes Anna’s shoulders affectionately, then pulls something small and thin out from her pocket. It isn’t until she releases the blade that Anna recognizes it as a small pocketknife. She realizes two things at once with equal horror: first, that Oksana apparently carries a knife with her everywhere, and second, what Oksana means by saying she will “take care of it”. 

“Stop!” Anna grabs Oksana’s wrist with all her strength, pulls her knife-arm down, pulls Oksana back behind the shelf. 

“Let me go,” Oksana says, impatiently. “I’m going to make the problem go away.”

“By threatening her?” Anna chooses to assume that’s what Oksana had intended; to intimidate the woman at knifepoint and nothing more. She _hopes._

“It’s over if she tells anyone. You said it yourself,” Oksana says. “I’m going to protect us.”

“Oksana! What would God say?”

“He’d say, ‘Wow, you are good with a knife.’”

Anna glares at Oksana. “There has to be another way.” She steels her nerves, then declares, “I’m going to talk to her.”

“And say what, exactly?”

“I’ll reason with her somehow,” Anna says, though she has no ideas of how to do that. Could she fall on her knees and plead with the woman? Bribe her with the pitifully tiny amount of money she had saved up? Ignore it and deny it ever happened; call her crazy if she tattles on them?

“Fine. But if it doesn’t work… I’m going to take care of it my way.”

Anna takes a deep breath and cautiously tiptoes out from behind the shelf, closer to where the custodian is vacuuming. She’s facing the other direction, and it seems she hasn’t heard Anna’s approach over the vacuum, so Anna gently taps her on the shoulder.

The woman shrieks louder than Anna believed any human was capable, and as she whirls around, brandishing her vacuum like a weapon, Anna sees that she’s wearing headphones. She yanks them out of her ears and turns off the vacuum with a kick to the switch.

“You scared me half to death! I didn’t know anyone was in here,” the woman screeches. “Why would you sneak up on someone in the dark like that?”

Anna could almost melt into a puddle with relief. “I’m sorry,” she begins to improvise, “I was wondering if you’ve found a pair glasses in here? I misplaced mine earlier.”

“No,” the custodian answers, emphatically.

“Thank you. Sorry, again. Very sorry,” Anna says sheepishly. The woman shakes her head with exasperation and replaces her headphones.

As she resumes vacuuming, Anna turns to see Oksana at the edge of the shelf, flashing two thumbs up. Anna goes and drags her by the arm out from the library. At least the hallway is safer – they’d be able to see for sure if anyone was coming.

“That was too close.”

“It would’ve been fine if you let me take care of it,” Oksana shrugs, unshaken by the encounter. “Though I suppose it’s good I didn’t have to, because,” Oksana starts to giggle, “who would have cleaned her up?”

Anna’s stomach turns. “Threatening to kill people is not a way to solve problems.”

“Says who?”

“God. The Bible. Everyone!” Anna says with exasperation. 

Oksana suddenly gets a very thoughtful look. “The thing I’ve never understood about God is, what if someone was about to kill you? Would He be alright if I killed that person to save you?”

“I suppose, maybe…”

“What if he was about to kill me?” Oksana offers. “And I used self-defense?”

“Those are extreme examples. But I suppose if it’s to save a life, He might forgive.”

“What about to stop a rape?” Oksana suggests.

“I’m not sure–”

“Or a thief.”

“You should try to solve it peacefully,” Anna maneuvers around the question.

“Where is the line? Why should you go around worrying about what God might approve of if He can’t even get it straight Himself?”

“I don’t like this side of you,” Anna says, firmly.

“I’m only trying to understand you,” Oksana says. “Do you understand what _I’m_ saying? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“There are some things you shouldn’t.”

“But I love you,” Oksana says. Anna feels like the floor has disappeared from under her; like she’s on the steep drop of a rollercoaster and she’s floating.

“I love you, too,” Anna replies, before she even knows what she’s saying.

“What would God say about that?” Oksana asks, taking Anna’s face in her hand, her thumb gently tracing Anna’s jaw.

Anna furrows her brow again, holding back her knee-jerk reaction, and actually asking herself. She has broken at least one Commandment and multiple laws besides, but was it all forgivable if it was in the name of love?

“I don’t know,” Anna answers.

They stand there, in the dark for a while, entwined, and Anna continues to think, but no answer comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently rewatched all of Anna's scenes from the show to prepare for writing the last couple chapters.
> 
> After writing this, they just hit different.
> 
> \---  
> On a lighter note, because this has been getting so dark I wanted something else light to work on, so you can check out my new [tropey vampire AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167241) if you need something to cleanse your palate :)


	9. Unhappy People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Anna agrees to take a trip with Oksana, Maxi's patience finally breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the trainwreck we have all known is coming, but we cannot avoid.
> 
> As a warning, there is a semi-graphic description of violence in this chapter; if you heard what was described in the show regarding Anna and Villanelle, it's only slightly worse than what was said on the show.

As the second semester begins and the promise of spring begins to thaw away the winter cold, something thaws in Anna as well, and she finds herself relaxing. Oksana, who has all but mastered English, now enrolls in Anna’s Intermediate Spanish class, and in her final semester has room in her schedule for another Independent Study with Anna, and at this point it seems silly to hold back, so they double-dip: Spanish class, lunchtime meetings, extra lessons on Saturday. Why bother to limit their time together at this point, now that the world has stopped questioning their closeness?

“Look,” Oksana says, one afternoon, tossing a History test onto Anna’s desk for her approval. B-minus; better than Oksana usually manages in any class besides Anna’s. 

“That’s wonderful.”

“Tell me how good I am.”

“You’re fantastic.”

“No! I am incredible.”

“That too.”

“More,” Oksana demands, but Anna rolls her eyes – they can do that dance again with the next test. 

“Only a few more months of this, and then you’ll see the fruits of your labor,” Anna says. “You should be very proud.”

“I deserve a very big reward for all this work,” Oksana says. “I have decided, as soon as it’s over with, I am going to leave for Europe.”

“Oh? You changed your mind?”

“Yes,” Oksana says. “I think you are right. I think I will enjoy a bit of travel.”

Anna feels a pang of bittersweet pride. Once she graduates, Oksana will truly be a free agent… free to leave Anna and go anywhere she likes. “How long do you think you will be gone?” she asks, afraid to know the answer.

“Don’t be stupid,” Oksana says. “You are coming with me.”

And then Oksana abruptly switches to speaking Spanish, drilling herself on conjugations, and that’s that. Anna has no chance to accept nor decline the invitation.

Over the next few weeks, Oksana brings up the subject of the trip occasionally, always with the same nonchalant manner.

“I think Spain should be first, don’t you?” she says one day, in the middle of a discussion about what to have to lunch. “So I can practice Spanish for real while it’s freshest in my head. France makes the most sense to go after that, geographically, but I’d like to save Paris for last, wouldn’t you?”

Anna is, as usual, caught off guard by Oksana’s sudden pivot, so she says, “Maybe the UK should be second, then.”

“Or perhaps Italy… We can always change our minds in the moment,” Oksana says cheerfully. 

“Oksana…” Anna begins, unsure of how to approach this predicament. “I am very happy for you to be graduating, you know that.”

“You only mention it five hundred times a day,” Oksana groans.

“And I think this trip will be great, for you.” There, now Oksana has picked up on the hesitation in Anna’s tone; her eyes flicker up warily, trying to size up the problem, plotting how to maneuver Anna into doing what she wants, like always.

“What does Maxi think about it?” Oksana asks, with a forced smile. As always, she’s pinpointed Anna’s weak spot. Anna can vamp and stall for hours when it’s only her and Oksana, but obviously she hasn’t mentioned the trip to Maxi; obviously she can’t go on the trip even though part of her would love nothing more, because how would she explain it to Maxi?

“He lets me make my own decisions,” Anna says firmly, the unspoken command, of course, being to _drop it, or else._

A command that Oksana will obviously ignore.

The following Saturday, as Oksana is leaving the apartment after her lesson, she pulls out a travel guide from her bag, handing it to Anna. She announces, “Take a look at this. I thought it was useful. For planning our trip.” Then she turns on a dime and marches out the door.

“What trip?” Anna looks up to see Maxi in the doorway to the kitchen.

It was no accident that Oksana said it in Russian, Anna knows. She wanted Maxi to overhear it; she wanted him to ask Anna about it. 

“She’s been working incredibly hard these past two years to graduate on time, and she wants to celebrate with a trip.”

“A trip with you?” Maxi asks. His tone isn’t confrontational – yet.

“Well…” Anna stalls as she tries to come up with the right framing. “I gave her the idea. You know how I traveled Europe for a few months after high school. I suggested that she might like it as well.”

“Does she think you are going with her?”

A direct question. Anna has gotten quite accustomed to lying by omission, but can’t bring herself to lie outright. “She might.”

Maxi opens his mouth as if he’s going to argue, then shakes his head and returns to the kitchen. Anna can hear the click and whoosh of the stove lighting. She goes into the kitchen to see Maxi frying some eggs for lunch, apparently done with the conversation.

Anna opens the fridge to grab a carton of orange juice. “Would you like some juice?” she offers.

“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,” Maxi says.

“So is that a no, or…?”

“When are you planning to tell her you can’t go on a trip with her?”

Anna pours herself orange juice, keeping her tone casual. “I have to handle it delicately. You know she can be prone to outbursts. I don’t want anything to get in the way of her passing her classes; that’s the most important thing.”

“So you’ll let her pack her bags on graduation day and then break the news to her? That seems almost cruel.”

“No, I would never.”

“Then when?” Maxi asks, turning away from his eggs. “Unless…” A look of realization crosses his face. “You’re not planning to actually go?”

Anna takes a large sip of her juice and becomes very interested in the magnets on the fridge.

Maxi puts down his spatula and turns to confront Anna. “When were you planning on telling me about this trip?”

“I was going to tell you when I was sure – I still haven’t decided.”

“Well then?” Maxi looks at her expectantly.

“She needs this,” Anna says quietly. “She’s so close to succeeding, and she needs a little incentive.”

“I can’t believe it,” Maxi says.

“Why can’t you support me in this?” Anna asks.

“I have!” Maxi snaps, his anger suddenly breaking through. “For a year now.”

“I never question _your_ work decisions, because I love you. I didn’t stop you from going to St. Petersburg because I knew how important it was–”

“You should’ve told me to stay!” Maxi shouts, hurt causing his voice to crack at the end. Anna’s throat twists up; she never realized how much Maxi had been holding back, but why couldn’t he have said that’s what he was feeling?

“I’m sorry I failed your test I didn’t know was a test,” Anna says, failing to keep the bitter edge out of her words.  
  
“I wasn’t trying to ‘test’ you, I wouldn’t have to if you made it evident that you want to spend time with me, your husband, more than with a student, with a murderer.”

“How long have you been holding that one in?” Maxi avoids her gaze, and returns to pushing his eggs around the pan with a spatula. Anna isn’t prepared to let him back down now. “Tell me what you really think, Max.”

“I don’t like the way she looks at you. Like you are a piece of meat… a meal waiting to be eaten… a trapped rat.” Maxi delivers the words to his eggs, not to Anna.

“So what is it you want from me, exactly? To stop teaching her? Get her kicked out of school? She needs me. I don’t have the luxury of deciding what children to help based on my husband’s feelings.”

“Don’t twist it around. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I don’t. Please elaborate.”

“What you do with her is beyond the call of duty for a teacher and student. It’s not normal.”

Though a shred of Anna – her conscience, perhaps – agrees with Maxi, she wants so badly to scream back at him all the reasons why she’s justified, why she can’t say no. Maxi doesn’t know about Oksana’s way with words, in four different languages. Maxi doesn’t know the power of her hypnotic stare. Maxi doesn’t know about the knife Oksana always has hidden on her person.

Anna puts down her glass and squares off with Maxi. “What are you accusing me of?”

“I’m sorry. Can we… start over?” Maxi seems to shrink, like the air is being let out of him. “I don’t want to be in a fight with you.”

Anna sighs. “I have to go.”

“Where?”

“I have errands to do.”

“Can they wait?”

“No.”

Anna puts on her jacket, and as she leaves the apartment, her conscience begs her to return, to apologize, to tell Maxi the truth. He deserves the truth, at the very least. But she knows if she returns, she will get defensive again. She doesn’t like how she was lashing out at Maxi, making him seem like the bad guy. It’s better to take some space apart.

She isn’t sure where she’s going; she doesn’t really have errands to do, but realizes now she has to go get groceries, or something; she can’t return home empty handed, or Maxi will know she’s been lying. Of course, he knows already, but it’s part of the game, Anna can’t let it be obvious.

But she needs to kill time first, she can’t go back home now, she is too raw; she needs to cool off. Subconsciously, her feet take her to the park where she sits with Oksana sometimes. She walks by the pond and the dog trail and then sees Oksana sitting by herself, on their favorite bench. She almost turns to run away, but Oksana looks up and sees her, and waves.

Anna goes and sits by Oksana, who says calmly, “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” Anna sighs. “I want to be, but I don’t have room inside right now. I’m too full.”

“Full of what?”

“Anger. At Maxi.” The words come spilling out of Anna, try as she might to keep them in.

“It isn’t right, that he makes you so angry,” Oksana says, placing a hand on Anna’s knee protectively.

“It’s not his fault,” Anna says, though the words sound hollow; she’s still too annoyed to believe them herself.

“Why are you even with him if he’s so bad?”

“He’s my husband.”

“People leave their husbands all the time,” Oksana says, earnestly.

“Unhappy people.”

“He is making you unhappy,” Oksana insists, taking Anna’s hand in hers, squeezing it gently. 

“No,” Anna says, “I’m frustrated at the moment, but it will pass. The truth is, I’m happy. Very happy.”

Anna places her hand on top of Oksana’s. She is indeed happier than she has any right to be, given the circumstances, but happiness is a gift from God, isn’t it? And wasn’t there some saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth?

“You are always telling me to go after my dreams,” Oksana begins, then hesitates.

“Yes?”

“Always telling me to go after what I want to achieve. But you won’t do it yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Anna says.

Oksana tilts her head, looking Anna dead in the face, and asks earnestly, “What is it that keeps you with him? Do you only love him because he has a penis?”

Anna is caught so off guard by the question that she laughs aloud. “Yes. You caught me.”

Oksana softens a bit. “You’re smiling again.”

“I am,” Anna says. “I suppose I owe you some thanks for cheering me up.”

She bids Oksana farewell and heads to the market to fulfill her errand excuse. As she picks up a carton of juice and a pack of biscuits, her mind lingers on Oksana’s question, for although it made her laugh, it is a valid one. 

Why does Anna love Maxi? His dazzling smile, of course. His heart, big enough to care for any stranger he passes on the street. His ability to instantly recognize any piece of classical music. The way he scrunches his nose when he’s trying to remember something. The way he listens, really listens when someone is speaking, and nods his head in tiny quick nods as he processes. His passion for getting the smallest details right in everything he does, from writing up contracts at work to perfecting his waltz on a night dancing. And _yes,_ his penis, too.

Anna has neglected all of those parts that make up the whole that is her wonderful husband for far too long. Now she wants to rush home, she has to apologize, she has to make things right between the two of them! Anna has made some errors in judgment lately, that much she can admit, and maybe she’s not strong enough to push Oksana away, but can’t she at least let Maxi back in?

She hurries home as fast as her feet can take her. When she flings open the door, Maxi is there, about to offer some apology that will shoulder the full blame for their fight, but Anna can’t let him do that. Instead, she throws herself into his arms and kisses him with more passion than she has since their wedding night.

Maxi receives her passively at first, as though he can’t believe her actions (and who can blame him, with how withdrawn she’s been for the past months, years?), but then his brain catches up with his body and he’s holding her, clutching her tightly like she might evaporate any minute.

When Anna finally has to come up for air, she says, “Let’s go dancing. Tonight.”

It’s not a perfect solution, Anna knows. But it’s only right, to give love. Her heart may not be as huge as Maxi’s, but surely it can hold love for two people at once. 

He’s happy, she’s happy… Anna will have to solve the problem of the trip at some point, but for now – can they survive this way? At least until June?

When she kisses Maxi, Anna believes that they can.

  
Anna should have sensed something dark was coming. She should’ve known Oksana was up to something after she told Oksana to walk home alone because she had to stay late at school to grade papers. Normally, Oksana would complain endlessly at the notion of losing any bit of their private time together, but today, she nods and leaves without a fight.

Anna should have felt the static in the air from the coming storm as she sat at her desk, mindlessly marking papers. When she looks back on this afternoon, she still remembers that she gave Yelizaveta Kuzmina an A-minus on her German Essay; her sentence structure was good throughout, but she misused the conditional tense a few times.

She should have had a fundamental sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach as she walked home; she should have quickened her pace and not stopped to watch the birds flocking to eat a discarded pretzel in the park.

Most of all, she should’ve immediately known something was wrong when she opened the door to find Oksana standing in her apartment, holding balloons and cheering. Instead, Anna’s blissfully ignorant thought was: _has she confirmed she has good enough marks to graduate? Is that what we’re celebrating?_

Anna probably asks something to that effect, but Oksana only squeals with excitement and leads Anna to the bedroom, where she sees Maxi. What once was Maxi. His clothes are slashed apart and stained with red, and at his groin, there is a gaping cavern, and a huge puddle of blood flowing out onto the bed, onto the floor. It seems more blood than could possibly come out of one person; it must be artificial, it must have been poured on, to excess.

“Surprise!” Oksana says with unrestrained glee.

Anna is mute with shock, until she stumbles sideways and almost steps on Maxi’s severed penis, lying on the floor. Revulsion restores her voice, and she screams with horror.

Fear pumps through Anna’s veins like ice, threatening to paralyze her. But there’s only one thing left to do, and Anna must, for once, muster the strength to do the right thing.

“Do you like it?” Oksana asks.

Anna murmurs, “Yes.” She begins to cry, silently. Oksana thinks they are tears of joy, somehow, and caresses Anna’s cheek softly. 

“I did it for you,” Oksana says, gently scrubbing away a fat tear rolling down Anna’s cheek with a swipe of her thumb.

“I know,” Anna replies, her voice low and hoarse.

The downstairs neighbors must have heard Anna scream. They must be calling the police right now. They must, or else Anna is as good as dead.

Anna pulls Oksana towards her, wrapping the girl in her arms, holding her close.

“Nothing to stop us from going to Europe, now,” Oksana says.

“Yes.” Hold her tighter; longer. That’s all Anna can do. Keep her calm and complacent, until the police come and take her away, far away, so she won’t kill Anna, or anyone else.

It feels like an eternity until the police arrive, and Anna flings Oksana away.

Oksana killed Maxi and then came at Anna as her next victim; she surely would’ve died if not for the police showing up. Yes, that’s what happened. That’s the safe story to tell, although it doesn’t seem like Anna will have to work hard to convince the officers, they’re already putting Oksana in handcuffs, shouting at her not to resist, though it doesn’t look like she is.

Everything Anna did over the past year and a half was to try to save Oksana from this fate, and in the end, it happened anyway, and it’s all Anna’s fault.

And Maxi is gone, and it’s all Anna’s fault.

As the police take her, Anna shouts at Oksana — Not complete sentences, but words, fragments, switching languages without realizing. _Devil! Horror! Wicked! Evil! Demon!_

At least, that’s what the officers on the scene tell her later. Anna can’t remember what words came out of her mouth; she can only remember what every cell in her being wished she could’ve said instead.

_I’m sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. It's rough.
> 
> Fallout coming in the final chapter.


	10. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Maxi is buried and Oksana locked up in prison, Anna tries to move on.

The trial is a blur.

All of the lawyer’s questions sound like they are coming from very far away. 

Except one that cuts through the fog like a bullet. “Describe the nature of your relationship with the defendant.”

_She was my student. Was, not is._

_We were happy. Were, not are._

_I loved her._

While the trial drags on, the real prosecutors and jury fade away, and Anna’s brain conjures up a new jury of her peers, hungry to hear the truth of what happened. We were lovers, Anna admits to them, and a chorus of gasps rises up.

_“I knew it all along!” Bykovsky says. “Classic subversion of the Oedpius complex. Of course a troubled youth who’d lost her mother would crave affection from an older woman, in any form. Despicable to take advantage of it, though, Freud has no excuse for you, Anna.”_

_“No way, it was that little devil’s fault, I’m sure of it,” growls Khobotov. “We should’ve never let her near our school. If she can even corrupt pious Anna, what else could she have done to us? Lock her up forever.”_

_Olga merely faints without a word._

_Headmaster Popov shakes his head. “I am disappointed, Madam Leonova. Simply disappointed.”_

_And Maxi… Maxi is gone, even in Anna’s head. He will never appear and comment on what Anna has done._

“Excuse me? Could you please answer the question?”

Anna jolts back into reality. “She was my student. That’s all.”

She is on the stand, terrified, tries to catch Oksana’s eye, Oksana shifts around in her seat, glancing around the room, apparently not even paying attention to her.

Anna has the chance to tell the truth now, but to do so would be suicide. The notion of a teacher having an affair with a student who murdered the husband out of jealousy would cause an uproar like none the neighborhood had seen in years. And… would it even help? Oksana is on trial for murder. The only thing telling the world the full extent of their relationship would accomplish is to give Oksana a clearer motive.

So Anna lies. _She was my student; we spent a lot of time together, it’s true, but only on lessons. I had no idea she planned violence against him._ That part is true, at least, though Anna feels like a fool to admit it.

As she exits the stand, she feels empty, like her soul has been evicted from her body. She has made her choice, but now it’s Oksana’s turn, and there’s nothing to stop her from telling the jury everything.

After all, Anna turned her back on Oksana. Anna let the police take her away. Now, Oksana has the power to make sure that Anna’s life gets destroyed as well. 

Anna cannot take a single breath as watches Oksana relay to the prosecutor the exact same story that Anna told, with not so much as a single flinch of hesitation. She’s always been a good liar, much better than Anna. Then Oksana looks Anna in the eye, briefly, but her gaze bores into Anna like a laser.

Anna understands the message. _“See? I kept my promise. I will protect you.”_ Chivalrous to the very end.

The jury does not take long to reach a verdict. They lock her up somewhere far away. Anna doesn’t try to find out where.

* * *

Everyone is so kind to Anna in the following weeks, and it makes her want to scream.

  
She was given leave from work, of course, given the circumstances, but she goes back as soon as she can, once the funeral and the trial are behind her. She can’t bear to sit at home alone with her thoughts.

However, nothing could prepare Anna for the sheer outpouring of grief on her behalf. _Stop it,_ she wants to say to every sympathetic glance. _Keep them,_ she wants to say when people offer her condolences. But she can’t. She has to play the part of the victim; the martyr who never saw it coming, who didn’t deserve it. 

It only takes four days for her to decide that she cannot take it anymore, so she marches down to Headmaster Popov’s office and tell him the truth.

“Headmaster? Can I come in?” Anna cracks open the door.

“Oh? Madam Leonova, yes.”

Anna enters, but decides to remain standing. She can’t risk sitting in that big leather chair; it will swallow up all of her resolve. “There’s something important I have to tell you.”

“At this very moment?”

“Yes. Regarding Oksana.”

The Headmaster’s brow wrinkles with exhaustion, like he wants to say no, but who can say no to the grieving widow? “Very well.”

“There’s something that–You should know that it wasn’t really her fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was my…” Anna doesn’t know how to properly explain it. “I mean. She, Oksana, and I… had a… relationship.” Her voice dries up to a tiny squeak by the last word, but Popov hears it. The deed is done.

Popov closes his eyes for a minute, as if deep in thought, then says, “That’s not something to joke about, Madam Leonova.”

“It’s not a joke!” Anna says, indignant.

“I think perhaps, you are so overwhelmed with grief, that the student you worked so closely with could’ve done something so terrible, that you are making things up. Looking for a way to blame yourself.”

“It’s true, Headmaster, and I demand that you fire me.” Anna must be punished; she must find her penance.

“Regretfully, I could not if I wanted to,” Popov says, his voice relaxing. “You are the first to know: I handed in my resignation this morning.”

“What?”

“Oksana really ruined things for all of us, eh? I was the one who brought her here, so it’s my reputation stained now.” He sounds wistful. “If she could’ve just held back a little longer, waited to murder someone until after she graduated, I’d have been patted on the back and given some certificate for helping troubled youth. Now that the rehabilitation has ended in disastrous failure, I don’t want to wait around until the school board decides to boot me out. I’ll leave with a scrap of dignity intact. Maybe I can scrounge up a job at some underfunded school out in the sticks…”

Anna is horrified at his blasé attitude. “You are a weak man.”

“I won’t deny that!” Popov laughs, leaning back in his chair. “But at least I know when to cut my losses, Anna.” He sighs, then offers, “You can try your story on the next Headmaster, but I hope you won’t. I think your husband would want you to move on. Recover.”

How can he possibly have the audacity to tell her what Maxi would want?

Anna leaves before she can succumb to the urge to spit in Popov’s face.

* * *

  
Anna returns to the Headmaster’s office the following week, as soon as Popov’s gone. She is determined to receive the punishment she deserves one way or another, but when she enters the office, she is shocked to find Khobotov, the math instructor, sitting at Popov’s fancy desk.

“Anna,” he greets her with a smile, rather than the withering pitiful glance she’s grown accustomed to receiving. “How are you holding up?”

“Khobotov?” Anna stammers. “I mean, Headmaster.”

“Interim Headmaster. Though I hope to be dropping that first word after I make a good impression on the board.” Khobotov smiles a wicked smile. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to tell you something serious. I tried to tell Popov but he told me to wait.”

“Well then?”

“Oksana – Astankova, I mean – She–”

“Are you about to make excuses for her? As sweet as that would be, Anna, she’s in prison. Where she belongs, I might add. There’s nothing I could do for her even if I wanted to.”

“No,” Anna says, gritting her teeth. She may become a murderer herself if Khobotov goes on being so irritating. “It’s about me. And her. I’ve done wrong–with her, I mean… Please, fire me.”

Khobotov laughs and leans down to open a low drawer in his desk.

“You don’t believe me?” Anna asks.

“I believe that that devil got so far into your head that she’s still driving you mad now,” Khobotov says. “See, I always knew she was bad news. I knew from the start. I don’t mean to say I told you so, but, well, I did tell everyone so.”

Anna remembers, he did. Loudly and often.

“I knew that she was dangerous mentally as well as physically,” Khobotov goes on. “Had those crazy eyes, you know? So I don’t blame you for your part in all this. You were simply unlucky enough to be her chosen prey. You and Max, rest his soul.”

These men sitting at this desk need to learn to keep Max’s name out of their mouth, or Anna will strangle them.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anna says, knuckles growing white from clutching the edge of the desk.

“I have something for you,” Khobotov says, and lifts up a small brown paper bag from the drawer, placing it on the desk in front of Anna. She reaches out tentatively to see what’s inside, but when her fingers brush the cool metal barrel of a pistol, she recoils.

“Why would you give me this?”

“She is dangerous. More dangerous than anyone else believes. She’s in prison for now, but…” Khobotov trails off. “If anything should ever happen, I want you to be prepared.”

He pushes the bag closer, and Anna takes it. She doesn’t see a way to decline.

* * *

Khobotov is not the only one who feels compelled to give Anna something. Everyone has their own way of “helping”.

Olga brings dinners to Anna for a month.

Bykovsky gives her the name of a fantastic counselor, whom Anna never bothers to call. What good would going and lying to a therapist do?

These gifts only remind Anna that she is trapped in a prison of her own. Alone, she remains in the apartment, full of reminders of Maxi, and of Oksana. Knowing she will see neither of them ever again. Knowing it’s all her fault. Forced to play the innocent victim for the rest of her days.

She still sits at the kitchen table where she taught Oksana. She still sleeps in the bed where Maxi’s corpse once sat.

She considers moving, but she couldn’t afford much else on her single salary. She considers leaving her job, but after the refusal by two Headmasters to fire her, she realizes how foolish that dream is, anyhow: if she goes to any other school, there will be questions. _Why did you leave your last job?_ Then they’ll learn the story, the story for public consumption. They’ll look at her full of pity just like everyone already does, thus defeating the whole purpose of leaving in the first place.

And doesn’t she deserve to be miserable for what she’s done? So Anna does not orchestrate a prison break. She serves out her sentence without complaint.

* * *

  
Letters come for Anna in the mail, addressed in Oksana’s neat cursive. Anna tells herself she won’t open them. She tosses them all, still sealed, into a box which she tucks away under her bed.

But sometimes at night, when the apartment feels cavernous and silent without Maxi filling it, she crumbles, pours herself a glass of vodka, and reads them.

_My dearest Anna, I hope you are not too angry with me…_

_At night, I still imagine the feel of your lips on mine…_

_Write back, I miss you._

_I long to see you again._

_We will still go to Paris someday._

_I will escape. I will find you._

But she is careful. Only reads a few sentences at a time. Only a few sips of vodka. She cannot collapse into alcoholism, though it might be comfortable. No, she must continue to be the good person that everyone expects her to be.

She itches to respond with letters of her own. Some nights her drafts are full of expletives, demanding that Oksana stop writing or Anna will come down to the prison and kill her for what she did to Maxi, what she did to Anna. Other times, her letters are pleas for forgiveness, shouldering full responsibility for everything that’s happened and telling Oksana to be strong, assuring her they will reunite someday.

But Anna is too cowardly, or perhaps too wise, to ever send them. She burns each draft before finishing. She almost burns Oksana’s letters too, but she can’t; they are the only evidence remaining that the version of events that Anna has canonized by sheer repetition is not the truth. She has to keep them, so she knows she isn’t crazy, so she knows she didn’t imagine everything that transpired between them.

Despite the lack of response, the letters keep coming, for a little over a year. Then they slow down, and eventually stop.

* * *

  
Three years.

Three years since Maxi’s death.

Anna, against all odds, is just beginning to move on. 

The knock comes at the door and Anna opens it to find a bearlike, bearded man. “Anna Leonova?”

“Yes.”

“Can I come in?”

Anna invites him in and brews him tea. He never gives his name. 

As she places a mug in front of him, he says, “I have some news for you. Oksana Astankova is dead.”

Anna’s blood freezes. “I’m sorry?”

“She has died.”

Anna never believed she’d outlive Oksana. In fact, part of her had always suspected Oksana would return someday and be the cause of Anna’s death. It seems wrong somehow; Anna had never believed the girl was truly mortal. “Why have you come to tell me personally?” she manages to get out, in between tight breaths.

“I understand that you had a special relationship with her.”

“Who told you that?” Anna’s face flushes.

“She told me herself.”

“She is prone to lying,” Anna says. After all these years, Oksana decided to make the truth known? Did she want to hurt Anna after all?

“So I have heard,” the man says. “Regardless, I thought it best that I broke it to you personally.” The man takes a sip of tea, then smacks his lips. “Do you have any sugar?”

“How did she die?”

The man gazes up at the ceiling for the moment, trying to recall. “Influenza,” he says, eventually.

Anna imagines Oksana tossing and turning in the grips of fever, weakening bit by bit, becoming less of herself with each passing day until she was gone. “Did it take long?”

The man looks at her, confused, and Anna worries that he may snap at her that it’s none of her business, or that he doesn’t know, but he just says, in an almost pitiful tone, “No.”

He excuses himself without ever giving his name or his relation to Oksana.

Anna grieves in a hollow way. No tears fill her eyes, but she feels a sense of pity and relief. She grieves for the life that Oksana could have had, and thanks God for the life she did have being brought to an end.

She grieves as well for the end of her own period of self-flagellation, but now that Oksana has moved on, it is time for Anna to move on as well.

* * *

  
The coat arrives a week after Oksana’s death.

Anna knows it can’t be from her. She is _dead._ It must be some mistake, someone sent it to her by accident – but it wasn’t shipped, it was delivered by hand; someone left it outside her door for her to find.

She asks her neighbors if anyone ordered a coat. They all say no.

It reeks of Oksana, but it’s impossible. She is dead. Ghosts cannot send mail. The only explanation Anna can think of is that Oksana, as she lay in the grips of her illness, somehow got in contact with someone on the outside and asked them to send one last gift to Anna on her behalf. Her dying wish.

Anna shoves the coat under her bed and tries to forget about it.

She sleeps with the gun in her hands for a few nights after that.

* * *

The question that haunts Anna more frequently than any other, year after year, is: _Why me?_

Oksana surely had the power to seduce anyone of her choosing. So why Anna; why not one of the other teachers? Why not Olga or Marta, why not Headmaster Popov’s wife who taught occasional workshops on home economics? For that matter, why a teacher at all, why not a random woman she encountered on the streets of Moscow? Surely if she looked around a bit she could’ve found any number of women more interesting and more beautiful than Anna – in shops, in restaurants, in bathrooms or boulevards. 

Why Anna?

On a bad night, when she misses Oksana with her whole being, when she’d kill Maxi a second time herself just to see her one more time, she answers that question like this: _she chose me because I wasn’t afraid. Because I had the strength to stand up to her and push back. Because she saw something special in me._

But most days, she knows that isn’t the real answer. The truth is, Oksana chose her because she is weak. She is the only woman weak enough to crumble under the mental and physical advances of a seventeen-year-old girl. 

She’s pathetic and she deserves what she got.

She pours a glass of vodka and re-reads Oksana’s letters.

* * *

  
Years go by. Six years, to be precise, though Anna has begun to find peace, and no longer measures time solely in relation to that day when it all went wrong.

People’s pity begins to fade, and other students come and go through Anna’s classes, year after year. There are moments, though occasional, when Anna even forgets it all happened, and is able to believe she’s always been a single woman, living only for her teaching.

Anna goes months at a time without hearing Oksana’s name, and sometimes even days without thinking of her, which may not seem much, but after years of being plagued with thoughts of Oksana for every waking moment, it is a heavenly reprieve.

Until one day, an American woman (or was she British? Her accent is American, anyway) tracks Anna down and demands that she must learn about Oksana for an important case.

Anna takes Eve back to her apartment. Why shouldn’t she, after all? It’s been six years; she’s moved on. She is strong enough for this. For the first time, she will allow someone to examine the museum of artefacts of Oksana that she’s kept all these years. Now she knows why she kept them: maybe they can help save lives, if Eve is to be believed.

“Anything useful?” Anna asks, bringing in tea from the kitchen.

“She always wrote to you in French?” Eve asks, rifling through the letters. Although Anna knows the events are safely buried in the past, she still prays that Eve does not speak French, so she will not read the words that were shared between Oksana and Anna.

“She loved the French lessons the most. Then, English.”

“This is not a _few_ letters, Anna. This is…” Eve trails off.

“She had a fixation,” Anna says. That’s the word she’s found most useful over the years. _Fixation._ True enough, but not dangerous.

“Was it reciprocated?” Eve asks.

“I was her teacher. I was married,” Anna says, the excuses pouring out of her reflexively.

“But…” Eve prods again, “Was it reciprocated?” 

A sprout of fear takes root inside Anna, the kind of fear she hasn’t felt since Oksana was with her, and she worried someone might spot them together. “I’m sorry, I’m not judging you,” Eve adds quickly, “I just need to know as much about her as I can.”

Anna takes a deep breath and prepares to give Eve the full story: the public-approved version, which Anna has told so many times at this point, that she nearly believes it herself.

“We were told a new student was coming. History of violence, antisocial behavior. Her mother was dead, her father was a drunk. She arrived at the school and everyone stepped back. Everyone. So I stepped forward. Extra time. Extra lessons. Extra love.”

“What was she like?” 

“She was so intelligent, funny, and rude. I liked her.” Anna surprises herself by adding that last phrase; it’s dangerous. She was caught off guard by how Eve asked the question so warmly, unlike anyone has ever asked Anna before. Eve sounds like she is looking for a positive answer, rather than hoping to hear that Oksana was always violent and moody. Who is this woman, and why does it seem like she wants to believe that Oksana loved Anna?

“What happened?”

“She wanted more lessons after school. She was good at making you feel bad, so she was here a lot. It was clear she didn’t like Max, but I thought it was because she didn’t trust men. 

“How did he feel?”

“He thought she was cold, I thought he was jealous.”

As Anna talks, she watches Eve’s hands go through the box of letters – she is the only person to ever touch those letters besides Anna and of course, Oksana herself. Anna tries to pretend that she doesn’t have the exact order and contents of each letter memorized.

“She sent me gifts. Clothes, perfume. She must have stolen them. Expensive french designers.”

Eve’s hands touch the bottle from the perfume Oksana gave her for her birthday, then the pick up the framed picture of the two of them with Oksana proudly holding her certificate for Excellence in French. Anna has never let anyone this tantalizingly close to the truth before, but it’s safe, isn’t it? It’s been so long, and Oksana is gone. This story is nothing more than a history – a history that Anna gets to control, being the sole survivor.

“Why do you think she did what she did to him?”

Ah, the question Anna has stewed on for six years.

“She was quite literal. Days before, she told me that the only reason I loved him was because he had a penis. I told her that she might be right.” Eve and Anna share a chuckle.

“That night I came home and she was in the apartment, there were balloons everywhere, a huge cake, and she was jumping around. Then she showed me what she had done, and she said it like it was a good thing. I went mad. I told her she was evil and crazy, and then she was picked up by the police and arrested… and I lost my life. I lost my Maxi…” Anna’s tears at this point are muscle memory more than anything. She has told this story too many times, received the same pitying responses too many times. She has grown exhausted of playing the part of the broken widow, but she’s called upon to give the performance one more time.

She remembers just in time to add the necessary tagline that has protected her so well over the years: “And that’s what you get,” she sniffs, “for being a good person.”

“Did she write to you from prison?”

Anna nods. “She said she was going to get out, and come back to me. Then I heard that she had died.” 

“Anna, I need to tell you something,” Eve folds her hands, her tone deepening with gravity. “Oksana isn’t dead. She escaped prison, and she’s been working for an organization that has protected her, and I am trying to find her.”

Anna’s hand clutches her heart as it feels like the floor disappears beneath her. “She isn’t dead?”

“No. And I think she’s in Moscow.”

Anna’s mind races, unable to process what she’s hearing. Is she even really awake, or is this another one of her nightmares? She hasn’t had one in years, but they never really leave her. This isn’t happening; she must be asleep, she must try to wake up. She barely hears as Eve suggests she stay with a friend, but despite her best efforts to force herself awake, Eve remains there seated before her.

“How is she?” Anna asks, hoarsely.

“I don’t know,” Eve stammers.

Anna is suddenly full of fury. How dare Oksana still be alive? How dare she return, after Anna has spent so long trying to forget her? How dare this woman, Eve, come and disrupt Anna’s peace with her investigation, and–

“If there’s any sign of her, I mean, if anything comes up at all,” Eve says, “Will you call me? Please.”

Anna nods. It’s all she can do. Let Eve continue her investigation. Maybe she will catch Oksana before she makes it back to Anna. It’s a vain hope, but Anna clings to it nonetheless.

Eve asks a few more questions, and has Anna identify the man who brought the news of Oksana’s death, but Anna’s mind isn’t really there – she’s only wondering, how far is Oksana, how is she, how has she changed?

She shows Eve the coat Oksana sent – the coat Oksana sent herself, her hands were on this coat, Anna now realizes – she was alive the whole time.

When Anna returns after leaving the dishes in the kitchen, Eve still seems very preoccupied with the coat, and Anna can’t help but flinch, for when she stands close to Eve, she catches a whiff of a familiar smell. 

_La Villanelle._ Though she hasn’t worn it in six years, Anna would recognize it anywhere.

Perhaps it’s a coincidence. Perhaps that scent is simply Eve’s own selection of perfume…

But as Anna retrieves paper and pen for Eve to write her phone number on, she puts in context the postive framing of each of Eve’s questions. _“What was she like?” “Was it reciprocated?”_ Now it makes sense why Eve needed to know the answers to those questions.

Anna cannot survive much longer with this woman in her apartment; it’s too much. She sends Eve off with some leftover cake.

“Thank you for your time. Maybe you should stay with a friend for a while, just in case?”

“If you find her, will you inform me?” Anna asks. “I’d like to see her again.” Since her peace has already been disturbed, she cannot let this opportunity slip away. Once they catch Oksana again, she must speak to her, say all the things she’s been stewing on for six years.

“Why?”

“I’d like to… forgive her,” Anna says. _And see if she can forgive me._ “It would really help me,” she adds, but Eve does not answer her request one way or another. Anna thinks she knows why.

As she leads Eve out, Anna feels a sudden rush of sympathy, and offers a warning. “Be careful. You are her type.”

“Good night, Anna,” Eve says, brushing off Anna’s concern as she turns to leave. Then, she whips around and asks, “Did you ever have sex with Oksana?”

“No!” Anna slams the door. Eve is the first person to ever ask her that, directly. Eve Polastri is the first person to make a liar out of Anna, for the story she was accustomed to telling wasn’t a lie, it was merely a selective version of the truth. Six years on, and she’s finally been found out.

However, Anna can’t hate Eve as much as she wants to, because she knows that Eve is currently under a power that is not her own. She hopes that Eve will resist the pull of Oksana’s power, will catch her and throw her in jail again before Eve meets the same fate as Anna.

Once again, Anna knows she hopes in vain. If Eve is wearing the perfume, it’s already too late. 

Electrified with fear and anticipation, Anna retrieves the gun from its spot hidden under her bed, and paces around the apartment. After a few hours, she finally gives up. If Oksana wanted to come find her, wouldn’t she have already appeared at some point in the past three years, since her escape from prison? Maybe she won’t come after all. Maybe she’s already caught.

Anna takes a deep breath and tries to return to her normal routine. 

* * *

A few hours later, her phone rings and she goes to pick it up, but the doorbell buzzes at the same time. When she answers the door, she finds a young girl standing there.

“Hello,” Anna says, but when the girl remains silent instead of launching into some sales pitch for a fundraiser, she asks, “Is everything alright?”

“Can I come in? I want a drink.”

She walks right in. Anna has no idea what is going on. It’s been an odd day. She gets the girl, who she learns is named Irina, a drink. 

“Your parents will be worried. Alone in the city… there are crazy people out there. It’s lucky you knocked on my door.” She still hears no response from Irina, and something in Anna begins to feel unsettled at the situation, though she knows this girl is just lost and harmless. “They aren’t going to worry?” she asks again.

“I get lost all the time,” Irina says, sounding remarkably unaffected.

“Maybe we should call the police and tell them you are here just in case.”

“Good. Let’s do that.”

Anna feels relief rush through her – nothing strange is going on here. Simply a lost child. Soon the police will come and sort it all out and Anna can go back to only worrying about whether or not Oksana will show up.

As Anna goes to grab her phone, she hears a rustling noise coming from the bedroom and goes to investigate.

Anna’s heart stops. There she is, turned away, bent over the bed rummaging through Anna’s things, but even her back is unmistakable.

“Oksana!”

Oksana whips around, pointing a gun directly at Anna’s chest, her eyes wild. “You are an arsehole,” she says, in English, and it takes Anna a moment to realize it is directed not at her, but at Irina, who has appeared behind Anna in the doorway. Oksana then directs her rage at Anna. “Where is it? Where is my stuff, my passport, my money?”

What things? Anna has too many questions, but can only say, “I don’t know.”

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Eve Polastri.”

“I don’t know, she was here to ask me about–” For the first time, in the heat of the moment, Anna fully takes in Oksana’s appearance, and notices the nasty scrapes and bruises that decorate her face. “Your face is hurt!” She exclaims, reaching out a hand towards Oksana’s face. “Let me–”

“No!” Oksana barks, raising the gun to make Anna back down.

“Just some disinfectant,” Anna pleads. She should feel more afraid, she supposes, or even angry. She had spent many hours imagining what she’d do if she ever saw Oksana again, but at the sight of her so hurt, Anna only feels her protective instincts rushing back. “Look at you. Oksana, please.” Oksana remains steely, so Anna confesses, “She gave me her number.”

Oksana’s eyes light up with fire. “Give it to me.”

“You look the same,” Anna says. And she does, at least the important parts. She’s dyed her hair blonde, she’s beat up, of course, and she’s developed some dark circles and wear on her face which Anna supposes is natural after years in prison and being “dead”, but the important bits are the same. The way she bites her lip, whether she’s angry or happy. Her posture that somehow indicates she doesn’t care at all what anyone thinks. The fire in her eyes – cold fire.

“You look older,” Oksana spits. But then looks in Anna’s eyes, and softens. “It’s nice.”

For a moment, Anna is transported back in time, six years, to the time before. When they were happy. When it was just the two of them… Until she is jolted back to the present as Irina says, “Can I go?”

“Don’t move your tiny stinking ass,” Oksana orders.

“It’s not _stinking._ ”

Anna hazards a small step closer to Oksana. “Let me clean your face, and then I will give you her number. Please.”

“Your face _is_ a mess,” Irina offers.

Anna reaches out. Towards Oksana. She can handle Oksana, can’t she? She pushes the gun down gently. “Let me, darling.”

“It does sting a bit.” Oksana’s eyes fill with tears, a sight Anna has seen many times before. Enough times to know when it’s an act.

Anna tries to piece together what that woman Eve Polastri told her… Oksana is a professional assassin? Wanted by two different countries, at least?

The same girl who splashed around in the rain puddles. Who wrote romantic letters. Who murdered Maxi. It seems Oksana found herself a career she could get excited about after all…

Oksana follows Anna into the living room, still holding the gun on her, as she heads to the cupboard where she keeps her first aid supplies. 

“It’s exactly the same,” Oksana says, glancing around the room.

“Yes,” Anna says. She didn’t have the energy to redecorate her own prison.

“Even his chair.”

“Yes,” Anna says, though she’d stopped thinking of it as _his_ chair long ago; it was too painful. But let Oksana keep talking, keep remembering, while Anna rummages in the cupboard and searches inside herself for the strength to do what she needs to do next.

“I think the best sex we ever had was on that chair.”

“Oh, God,” Irina mumbles.

Anna whips out the gun and points it at Oksana, whose only reaction is a deadpan, “Oh, hello."

“Leave the room!” Anna commands Irina. 

“No, Irina, you stay,” Oksana says, never taking her eyes off Anna. “This is an example of someone who thinks they can shoot a gun but they _can’t._ You’re safe.”

“I can. I will shoot your black heart,” Anna says, to convince herself more than anything. It’s her fault Oksana is here; it’s her responsibility to finally put a stop to the danger she brought on everyone she met.

“Where is Eve’s phone number?” Oksana demands.

“I can do it,” Anna insists. If she repeats it, then it will become true.

“What would _God_ say?” Oksana adopts the most withering stare, one Anna had seen her use on others many times before, but never directed at her. 

“He would understand.”

“Well, what would he say about doing it in front of her?”

“I don't mind,” Irina pipes up.

“Shut up,” Oksana snaps, then turns back to Anna, and gleefully declares, “You see, you can’t do it. You can’t.”

“I spent every night dreaming that you were alive so I could shoot you myself.” Anna lets out a laugh, the sudden honesty after six years of being bottled up shaking her free of her self-imposed cocoon. “When your coat came, I prayed to God that you would come.”

“Did you two used to go out?” Irina asks.

“She seduced me,” Anna says, and hears Oksana say in unison.

Oksana chuckles. “Come on.”

“It was you!” Anna spits, seizing up with fear, but isn’t this what she’s been waiting six years for? To decide who takes the blame?

“Fine,” Oksana relents, and turns to Irina, “But can you blame me?” Anna had imagined this very conversation thousands of times, and always thought she be relieved if Oksana accepted the blame for what happened, but now she just feels sick to her stomach.

Irina says, “If you two love each other–”

Oksana interrupts, “No. I don’t love her anymore.” _Anymore._ The word pierces Anna like a sword. “The thing is, I can kill you,” she says to Anna.

“No,” Anna breathes. Oksana, who lied to protect her. Oksana, who once said she’d do anything for Anna. Oksana, who wrote to her from prison. But she is not Anna’s Oksana anymore. She has moved on, in a different way than Anna had anticipated. She is Eve’s now.

“I’m sorry, but yes.”

Anna’s heart races. Oksana always gets what she wants, doesn’t she?

There’s only one way for Anna to deny her.

Shooting Oksana would be the right thing to do. Stop her from hurting anyone else. Save that woman Eve Polastri from Anna’s fate. Save this little girl and any of Oksana’s other future victims. 

Anna has never once been strong enough to do the right thing, not since she met Oksana. But knowing that this is her last chance, she has the tiniest scrap of courage, the minuscule amount of strength required to make a small gesture of penance.

Anna raises the gun to her chin. Suicide may be a sin, but she’s thoroughly punched her ticket to Hell.

With her last heartbeat, she relaxes. She allows herself to drop the lie she’s been telling for years, and as she releases that weight, her soul instantly feels lighter.

_I was not a good person, and I deserve everything that has happened._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is.
> 
> Writing this was a real journey. I started out by watching these last few scenes and wondering how it all could've gotten there. How Anna could've been in enough denial to have an affair with a student, how Villanelle could've ever stayed in a long-term apparently stable relationship.
> 
> It's crazy, but in the middle I was almost rooting for them to work it all out. But of course, it has to end how it ends.
> 
> I am definitely glad I wrote this, but I'm gonna really lean into some fluff now, because I need to cleanse my brain.
> 
> If you made it this far, thanks for going on this journey with me.  
> <3 
> 
> And let me know in the comments (or on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)) what your take is on the tender and twisted story of Anna and Oksana.


End file.
